Can Pregnant Women Eat Lychee? A Detailed Explanation of Lychee's Benefits and Effects

Lychee is one of the top fruit choices for many people in summer. Although lychee is delicious, eating too many can cause internal heat. As for whether eating lychee during pregnancy can cause miscarriage, opinions remain divided to this day. Do you know what benefits and effects lychee has? And what are its dietary taboos?

I. Benefits of Lychee

1. Lychee flesh is sweet and juicy, and has the effect of promoting body fluid and quenching thirst, tonifying the liver and supplementing the spleen. In the hot summer, when people's appetite is slightly poor, eating some lychee can improve loss of appetite.

2. Lychee is rich in vitamin C and protein, which can enhance human immunity and improve disease resistance.

3. Lychee also has a certain beauty and skincare effect. It is rich in multiple vitamins, carotene, and folic acid, which can promote blood circulation, help slow the production of melanin in the skin, prevent freckles, and make the skin smoother and more radiant.

4. Lychee is rich in glucose, fructose, and other sugar components. Regular consumption can replenish physical strength and improve bodily fatigue.

5. Lychee has the effects of enriching the blood, stopping bleeding, reducing swelling, and detoxifying.

6. According to research, lychee has a nourishing effect on the brain. Eating more lychee helps improve sleep and has the effect of replenishing qi and calming the mind. It is suitable for symptoms such as forgetfulness and mental fatigue.

7. Although lychee tastes sweet, it contains a substance that can lower blood sugar, which is a great benefit for diabetes. However, most lychee today has been artificially cultivated, so it mostly tastes extremely sweet. People with diabetes should eat lychee varieties that are less sweet and slightly sour.

II. Dietary Taboos of Lychee

1. It should not be eaten on an empty stomach. It has a high sugar content, and eating it on an empty stomach will irritate the gastric mucosa and cause symptoms of stomach pain and bloating.

2. It should not be eaten in large amounts at one time. It is likewise rich in a large amount of fructose. Eating a large amount of lychee in a short time will prevent the fructose from being metabolized, so it accumulates in the blood vessels, stimulating the body to secrete a large amount of insulin and causing symptoms of hypoglycemia.

3. It is not suitable for people with yin deficiency and excessive fire, or with symptoms such as dry and painful throat, swollen and painful gums, and nosebleeds caused by excessive internal heat.

4. It should not be eaten together with carrots, cucumbers, or animal liver.

III. Can Pregnant Women Eat Lychee?

Lychee contains rich nutritional elements. Lychee is sweet and sour in taste and warm in nature, and enters the heart, spleen, and liver meridians. Can pregnant women eat lychee? The answer is yes. Pregnant women can eat some lychee in moderation. But it should not be eaten in large amounts. Pregnant women should eat 100—200 grams of lychee each time, and generally no more than 10 pieces.

Because lychee has a high sugar content, eating a large amount may cause high blood sugar. If the blood sugar concentration is too high, it can lead to disordered sugar metabolism, causing sugar to be excreted from the kidneys and resulting in glycosuria. Although after eating a large amount of sugar, high blood sugar can return to normal within 2 hours, repeatedly eating large amounts of lychee can cause blood sugar concentration to remain elevated, which easily leads to a large fetus and makes difficult labor, prolonged labor, postpartum hemorrhage, and infection more likely.

In addition, when eating lychee, beware of “allergies.” Lychee allergy generally causes symptoms such as facial flushing and sore, swollen throat, and can also cause tooth swelling and pain, chest tightness, stomach pain, and painful urination. In more severe cases, the whole body skin becomes red and swollen, small red bumps appear, and the itching is unbearable. These symptoms are customarily called “lychee allergy.”

However, for normal people, the possibility of becoming ill because of lychee is not great. According to epidemiological surveys, generally only people who eat 2 kilograms of lychee every day for a week may develop “lychee disease,” and those affected are mostly children. Therefore, as long as pregnant women do not overeat lychee, there should be no major problem.

IV. Can Eating Lychee During Pregnancy Cause Miscarriage?

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the main physiological change in pregnant women is that “yang is often in excess, and yin is often insufficient.” Because after conception, yin blood gathers to nourish the fetus, mostly leading to deficiency of yin blood. Yin deficiency often generates internal heat, which is why symptoms such as dry and knotted stools, bitter mouth and dry mouth, palpitations and dryness-heat, a reddish tongue proper, and excessive liver fire often appear. Therefore, medical experts usually advocate that “before childbirth, coolness is appropriate,” and often use some cooling and nourishing medicines. However, lychee is warm in nature and sweet in taste, and very easily causes “internal heat.” People from Guangdong have a saying, “one lychee, three fires.” Some people will get mouth sores or nosebleeds after eating too many. If pregnant women eat too much lychee, it will increase fetal heat and easily lead to disorder of qi movement, causing upward reversal of stomach qi and vomiting. Over time, it damages yin and produces heat signs, causing abdominal pain, spotting, and other symptoms of threatened miscarriage. In addition, lychee has the effect of invigorating blood circulation, so pregnant women in early pregnancy should not eat it.

However, from the perspective of Western medicine, lychee itself does not contain any substance that causes miscarriage. It is only that lychee has a relatively high sugar content, and eating too much can easily cause blood sugar to rise. Long-term and large consumption of lychee may cause excessively high blood sugar concentration, which easily leads to a large fetus.

In short, pregnant women eating lychee in moderation will not cause miscarriage; they simply should not eat too much each time.