[Food cravings and aversions in pregnant women in the Buenos Aires Conurban, Argentina].

Introduction: Pregnant women often experience food aversions and cravings, of which little is known about their characteristics and consequences. The objective was to know the prevalence of food cravings and aversions, the characteristics of the pattern of foods that are craved or avoided, and the reasons behind their presence.

Methods: Observational, descriptive and cross-sectional study. A validated questionnaire was applied to 370 pregnant and postpartum women in public hospitals. Maternal and neonatal variables were measured with descriptive statistics and those associated with the phenomena under study were identified using logistic regression models and cluster analysis using the multivariate technique.

Results: A presence of cravings from 71 to 80% and aversions from 55 to 65% was detected. The most craved foods were fruits and sweet foods and the most avoided meats and mate. The maternal characteristics predictive of cravings were: being younger (OR 0.94), vomiting (OR 2.23), and having gained more weight than expected were negatively associated with the presence of cravings (OR 0.44). The variables associated with the aversions were the absence of a history of hypertension (OR 0.13), a history of macrosomia (OR 2.70), nausea (OR 1.86) and complications during pregnancy (OR 2.23).

Discussion: This work allowed to characterize food cravings and aversions during pregnancy and to know their high frequency.