17/11/2025
NUTRITION AND PREGNANCY (7): ARE SWEETENERS DANGEROUS DURING PREGNANCY?
Dr. Claude Allouche, gynecologist
Ahuza Clinic, Raanana
058 726 02 64
Rumors about sweeteners have been growing for decades and the issue still seems to be unresolved.
The role of sweeteners in food is to replace the sugar we consume, without providing calories or very few.
Sweeteners indeed have the property of being very sweet, even in small doses.
The most commonly used sweeteners are:
1/ Aspartame:
Artificial sweetener discovered in 1965.
It has a sweetening power about 200 times greater than that of sugar and is used to sweeten low-calorie drinks and foods as well as medications.
2/ Saccharin:
The oldest artificial sweetener, discovered in 1859.
It has a sweetening power 300 to 400 times higher than sugar, but has a metallic or bitter unpleasant aftertaste.
Saccharin provides no calories.
3/ Stevia:
It is a plant native to South America.
It is the leaves that have a sweetening power 300 times greater than sugar.
Commercialized as a sweetener in our regions only a few years ago, more and more products contain it to decrease their calorie intake (drinks, dairy products).
The fact is that nearly 72% of pregnant women seem to consume sweeteners without exceeding the currently established ADI (acceptable daily intake). (INSERM 2006 study of 1584 pregnant women)
Aspartame and other sugar substitutes, mentioned above, are regularly questioned about their safety on health.
What about it?
There is no study that has analyzed the effect of sweetener consumption on the weight of pregnant women.
To date, no study has analyzed the effect of sweetener consumption on gestational diabetes.
Current scientific literature also does not identify a nutritional benefit linked to sweetener consumption during pregnancy.
The available data therefore do not allow concluding to a prejudicial effect of sweeteners during pregnancy, whether on the mother's health, obstetrical parameters or the newborn's health.
New research will be necessary to conclude more certainly.
As for aspartame in particular, a complete reassessment of its safety of use is currently underway, following the request of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).
The recommendations in this area remain those that nutrition professionals give in a general way:
Sugary products should not be consumed regularly and daily.
They are considered as "extras" - we don't need them to live, but they are enjoyable.
It is therefore necessary to limit their consumption in order to respect a healthy and balanced diet.
In this regard, synthetic sweeteners are therefore not useful.
As long as scientific data remain unclear on this subject, it is better to err on the side of caution and not consider them as completely harmless products.
Additional publications on the subject:
- Diet and pregnancy (1): general advice
- Food and pregnancy (2): which foods to prefer?
- Diet and pregnancy (3): special situations: vegan? twins? alcohol?
- Diet and pregnancy (4): avoid toxoplasma
- Diet and pregnancy (5): avoid listeriosis
- Diet and pregnancy (6): which foods to avoid?
- Diet and pregnancy (7) Are sweeteners dangerous during pregnancy?
