Understanding the Digestive System during Pregnancy

One of the most important human physiological structure is digestive system. It helps to break down the food in smaller particles, absorb nutrients from the food and provide energy to the body in order to function normally.

The digestion process include several steps and this process is more important during pregnancy as it provides adequate nutrients to the pregnant mother and the foetus as well to grow in an effective manner (Bookari, Yeatman and Williamson 2017). 

However, in the period of pregnancy, the uterus of the pregnant women expands that creates pressure on the wall of the pelvic veins and stomach, hence leads to several issues related to digestion.

Due to digestion issues it has been found that most of the pregnant women suffer from constipation.

Hence. Proper diet and nutrition is important in case of pregnant women in order to remain healthy and avoid digestion issues and constipation (Verghese, Futaba and Latthe 2015).

The clinical scenario for the assignment is related to digestive system. In this assignment a midwifery nurse need to prepare a poster in order to provide knowledge to the pregnant women regarding the healthy eating habit, nutrition and factors contributing to the development of constipation. Some nutritional recommendation will be provided in the poster in order to help them to understand the way to avoid digestion issues and constipation.

The assignment will describe the digestive system such as structure. Function and digestion process and also provide information related to the correlation of cardiovascular system with digestive system in the process of digestion.
It would help the pregnant women to understand the digestion process and follow effective nutritional requirements in order to stay healthy and give healthy life to the new born. 

The digestive system contains the gastrointestinal tract and some accessory organs.

Gastrointestinal tract has two openings- mouth at upper portion and anus at lower portion.

The major parts of gastrointestinal tract includes mouth, oesophagus, stomach, small intestine and large intestine.

Mouth: It is the starting part of digestive tract. Chewing and breaking foods into small particles occur here for the first time.

Oesophagus: It is present in the throat near the trachea. It receives food from mouth and transfer it to stomach through various muscular contractions known as peristalsis.

It is a hollow organ of digestive system. Most of enzymes that takes part in the breaking down the food into smaller particles present here. Enzymes and acid secreted by the stomach helps to break the food into smaller parts in order to absorb nutrients from them and after the completion of processing of the food it is then delivered to small intestine.

Small intestine: It contains three major part such as duodenum, jejunum and ileum. The duodenum is involved in the further break down of the food and jejunum and ileum are involved in the absorption of nutrition from the food and transport them to the bloodstream.

Large intestine: It connects the small intestine to the rectum. It is the specialized organ that functions for processing waste materials. After processing the waste materials it delivered its content to the rectum for elimination.

The accessory organs include teeth, salivary gland, liver, pancreas and gallbladder (VanPutte, Regan and Russo 2013).

Function:Digestive system mainly functions in order to turn the foods into energy that needs to survive. In this regards the digestive system breaks down the foods into small particles and absorbs nutrients to transport it throughout the body with the help of blood stream and also helps to eliminate waste materials (Patton 2015).

The Interrelation between the Digestive and Cardiovascular System

The process starts with ingestion which means eating.

Next step is propulsion that includes transport of the food to the digestive tract. In this process peristalsis is include that processed the food by the contraction and relaxation of smooth muscles of the walls of digestive tract and creates force to move the food in the digestive tract.

Mechanical digestion is the next step in which food breaks down into smaller particles in order to facilitate the digestion process. It begins in the mouth with chewing, then continues in the stomach and further break down occurs in the small intestine. A similar process like peristalsis occur here that is known as segmentation.

Chemical digestion is the process of breaking down the food with the help of digestive enzymes.

Then absorption of nutrients occur with the help of jejunum and ileum and the absorbed nutrients transport to the bloodstream in order to deliver nutrients throughout the body.

Defecation is the last step that includes processing of waste materials and elimination (Rizzo 2015).

In order to proceed with effective digestion process the cardiovascular system correlates with the digestive system in an effective manner.

It is important for the human body to transport adequate nutrients to each cell of the body in order to function properly. In this process the digestive system break the food into smaller particles absorb nutrients from them and transport the nutrients to the blood.

On the other hand, the alimentary canal absorb the nutrients and cardiovascular system helps to distribute the nutrients throughout the body.

The digestive system functions to absorb iron from the food that is required for the synthesis if haemoglobin and in order to maintain the volume of plasma, it transfers water to the blood vessels. Such process helps the cardiovascular system to function properly.

In order to facilitate the digestion process it is important to transport oxygen throughout the body and remove CO2 and other waste material from the body. In this regards, the cardiovascular system helps to facilitate the transport of blood in order to provide oxygen throughout the body and remove CO2 and other waste materials from the body through respiration and sweating.
In addition the cardiovascular system receives some signal from the endocrine gland and send it to digestive system in order to control the speed of digestion (Sherwood, L., 2015).

Eating and nutrition:

In case of pregnancy effective diet does not mean the diet for weight loss. It is related to healthy eating habits. 
Proper diet during pregnancy helps to ensure that the pregnant mother is receiving adequate nutrients in order to fulfil her daily nutrient requirements. 

It helps the foetus to develop in an effective manner.

Study has indicated that, a pregnant woman needs to consume 70mg of vitamin c and consuming folic acid is also necessary as it helps to avoid neural tube defects. Thus, it is important to have fruits and vegetables as it contains adequate amount of folic acid and vitamin c to fulfil the daily requirements.

It is important for the pregnant women to consume proper amount of protein such as egg, fish and meat in order to facilitate the growth of the baby.

In order to maintain the calcium level of blood it is important to have adequate amount of dairy products.
The pregnant women need to drink plenty of water in order to facilitate the digestion process, avoid dehydration and remain healthy.

Eating bread and grains is important to consume adequate amount of fibre and carbohydrate as it is the main source of energy during pregnancy.

In addition, according to the recommendation of the health professional prenatal vitamins could be taken to fulfil the daily requirements of nutrients (Bookari, Yeatman and Williamson, 2017).

Constipation: According to a study constipation most of the women suffer from constipation during pregnancy. The researchers have indicated high level of progesterone as the main reason of constipation during pregnancy.
An increase in the progesterone level during pregnancy leads to the relaxation of smooth muscles including digestive tract and pelvic veins, thus the food passes at a slow rate through the intestine (Basilisco and Coletta 2013).
It has been found that during third trimester pregnant women consume less amount of fibre and fluid, which leads to the incident of constipation (Shin, Toto and Schey 2015).

Other effective factors that contributes to the consequence of constipation during pregnancy are- high magnesium, iron and sulphate containing medicines and some health issues such as hypothyroidism (Domellöf, Thorsdottir and Thorstensen 2013).

Preventing Constipation during Pregnancy

According to research, mixture of fibre and fluid is effective for reducing constipation. Hence, it can be recommended to a pregnant women to intake adequate amount of fibre such as cereals, vegetables, fruits, bread and grains in order to avoid constipation. It is important to drink adequate amount of water and intake other fluids to facilitate the process of digestion (Bookari, Yeatman and Williamson 2017).

It has been found that excessive iron intake could be a cause of constipation during pregnancy, thus, it is important to maintain the intake of iron in diet. In this regards the doctor could recommend alternatives for prenatal vitamins that contain high level of iron (Domellöf, Thorsdottir and Thorstensen 2013).

Furthermore, some products are available that do not need prescription of doctor. Such products or botanical medicines could be used to facilitate the process of digestion during pregnancy and reduce the risk of constipation (Cirillo and Capasso, 2015).

Apart from nutritional requirements, a pregnant woman should perform some comfortable physical activities. Increasing fluid intake along with physical activities would help to remove waste materials with the formation of sweat.
Generally constipation is a normal consequence of improper digestion, however, it has been found that some pregnant woman suffer from abdominal pain, diarrhoea with blood and mucus and other issues. In this case consulting with a health professional is important in order to get proper recommendations (Van Der Woude, Metselaar and Danese 2014).

References:

Basilisco, G. and Coletta, M., 2013. Chronic constipation: a critical review. Digestive and Liver Disease, 45(11), pp.886-893.

Bookari, K., Yeatman, H. and Williamson, M., 2017. Informing nutrition Care in the Antenatal Period: pregnant Women’s experiences and need for support. BioMed research international, 2017.

Cirillo, C. and Capasso, R., 2015. Constipation and botanical medicines: an overview. Phytotherapy Research, 29(10), pp.1488-1493.
Domellöf, M., Thorsdottir, I. and Thorstensen, K., 2013. Health effects of different dietary iron intakes: a systematic literature review for the 5th Nordic Nutrition Recommendations. Food & nutrition research, 57(1), p.21667.

Patton, K.T., 2015. Anatomy and Physiology-E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Rizzo, D.C., 2015. Fundamentals of anatomy and physiology. Cengage Learning.

Sherwood, L., 2015. Human physiology: from cells to systems. Cengage learning.

Shin, G.H., Toto, E.L. and Schey, R., 2015. Pregnancy and postpartum bowel changes: constipation and fecal incontinence. The American journal of gastroenterology, 110(4), p.521.

Van Der Woude, C.J., Metselaar, H.J. and Danese, S., 2014. Management of gastrointestinal and liver diseases during pregnancy. Gut, pp.gutjnl-2013.

VanPutte, C.L., Regan, J.L. and Russo, A.F., 2013. Seeley’s essentials of anatomy & physiology (Vol. 7). McGraw-Hill.

Verghese, T.S., Futaba, K. and Latthe, P., 2015. Constipation in pregnancy. The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist, 17(2), pp.111-115.