By Kate Halim
It is not unusual for pregnant women to crave different foods. But what it is unusual is the length these women would go to make sure they satisfy their cravings.
Saturday Sun spoke to some mothers and they shared different stories of pregnancy cravings, as well as some of the unusual things they did while pregnant.
Vivian Kokoma, an online food vendor said that when she was pregnant with her son, she craved salt water a lot. She would soak garri in plenty water and salt, then she would sieve out the water and drink.
She said: “I could only drink tap water. I also loved to inhale and lick a particular soap brand. During my first trimester, I could only drink salt garri water. During my second trimester, I started eating eba but it had to be made a day before, with no meat or fish.”
According to Kokoma, she loved noodles made with palm oil, red bell peppers which must be paired with a very cold bottle of star lager beer. She added that during pregnancy was her first time of tasting beer in her life and this happened during her second trimester.
Different women, different cravings
When she was pregnant with her son, Chinyere Ogbonna craved for Ozone cinema popcorn daily as if she would die if she didn’t eat it.
She said she made her brothers who were studying in Yaba College of Technology at the time, come all the way from Yaba to Ikotun because of popcorn. They would buy the popcorn and bring for her.
Ogbonna also craved and ate ewa agoyin (beans) with fish every morning with chilled big bottle of Coke popularly known as Orobo.
“During my first trimester, I would buy and keep a bottle of small stout in the fridge, and take sips from it a few times a day. The way these cravings come, you feel like if you don’t eat or drink what you are craving at that time, that something would happen to you”, Ogbonna added.
Before pregnancy, Ogbonna said she couldn’t even taste coke, it had always been Fanta from when she was young, but after she got pregnant, she wouldn’t touch Fanta at all. After she gave birth, she continued with coke, until she stopped taking it in 2015.
Ogechukwu Okolie had different cravings whenever she was pregnant. For her first child, her cravings started in her second trimester.
Okolie said: “I wanted all types of fruits, vegetables, soups, stews, meat, fish but never desired to taste same food all over again until the third trimester.”
She said if she ate orange, she never wanted to have it again. So she was always gunning for something new per time but once she laid her hands on it, she ate it like it’s going out of fashion.
Okolie remembered eating okra soup once which, by the way, is her favourite soup and never felt comfortable with its aroma till her third trimester. She noted that it was so with other foods. She would eat them once, lose interest and move to another food.
She recalled that when she was pregnant with her second son, she had to travel to Suleja, Niger State just to buy bush meat because she wanted to eat it badly. After then, she said she started craving snail, bush fowl, and offals.
Ifeyinwa Okocha had her first child when she was 20 years old. She told Saturday Sun that it wasn’t a pleasant experience because she was sick a lot and threw up whenever she perceived perfumes, body creams and alcohol.
“I hardly kept food down. I had to chew gum to stop myself from vomiting after eating. I licked spicy sweets a lot too. They kept my nausea at bay. I remember trekking for over 20 minutes one hot afternoon to buy palm oil rice from a buka in my area”, Okocha said.
Okocha revealed that her husband was on edge during her second and third trimester because he didn’t know what she would demand to eat at night. She said she had some of her many food cravings at night.
Okocha said that one night, she started craving ram meat suya and begged her husband to help her buy it. This was around 10pm and it meant her husband would have to drive for almost 40 minutes to and fro to grant her request.
According to Okocha, her husband begged her to eat the suya a young man sold close to their street but she refused. She said she wanted the ram suya from the other side of town. She said she was not at ease with herself until she ate the ram suya and went to bed.
For her second and third pregnancies, Okocha had different cravings. She also behaved differently. She said she didn’t like staying close to her husband during her third pregnancy and moved back into her parents house until she gave birth. To her, pregnancy is no child’s play and she doesn’t blame women who refuse to go down that route.
When Ufuoma Okotete-Awomosu was pregnant, garri and suya that she used to eat during her university days suddenly became her favorite thing. She said that she didn’t want to touch her regular fried eggs and bread breakfast, she wanted to have pepper soup and yam for breakfast instead.
The mother of one added that she was always buying a particular ginger sweet while pregnant but after she gave birth to her son, she couldn’t take it any more.
Chinwe Asu, a mother of three told Saturday Sun that during the first three months of her pregnancies, she hardly ate or perceived some smell in peace. She added that she spat a lot and felt nauseous but didn’t vomit.
Asu said: “I never vomited while pregnant. I didn’t like the smell of perfume, lighted match and toothpaste. But after the first three months, I start craving buka food. No matter how much food I have at home, I always crave food made in different bukas.
Asu recalled that when she was pregnant with her last baby, she would take her two other children on a bike to go and buy buka food. And as she ate the food, they would join her to enjoy it too.
“Whenever I’m pregnant, I get addicted to very cold things. I chew ice blocks a lot. I hide to chew ice blocks because my husband won’t allow me satisfy that craving in peace. I chew it like food and it made me happy then”, Asu said.
But because she was scared her chewing ice blocks might affect her baby, Asu said one day, she called her elder sister and asked her if chewing ice blocks was bad for a pregnant woman but she told her she was equally guilty of that too and didn’t think it harms the baby. So, she relaxed and enjoyed her block-chewing pregnancy cravings very well.
Asu said: “If you see the way I freeze water daily so that I chew the block, you will start wondering what is going on. I visit Amala joints almost everyday to eat Amala, Ewedu and goat meat.
Another craving Asu had while pregnant was drinking Vita Soya Milk drink a lot. She said her husband would buy the pack every two days because of the way she drank them.
Whenever Nwakaego Ohaegbulam is pregnant, she craves food prepared by another person. She said she craves ice cream which is not normal because she doesn’t like ice cream. During her last pregnancy, she started craving and eating Kaolin known as nzu in Igbo land.
Nkechinyere Eke Charles revealed that she had some cravings while pregnant, but she wouldn’t describe such cravings as weird. She told Saturday Sun that she mostly craved irregular foods like agidi, okpa, and pap without milk. She loved to chew ice blocks too.
Charles stated that the only water she loved to drink was the one with ice in it, it’s that or no water for her. She also loved to have sliced peppers in her food.
She said: “I hated to cook my own food. I could only eat food prepared by another person, but the food must not be prepared in my house. I hated the smell of anything. And if I didn’t get my food when I wanted it, I would start crying. No jokes. I was a serious crybaby.”
According to her, when she was pregnant, she ate edible chalk a lot and always kept it handy. She also loved to chew ginger root.
Naturally, Martha Ajayi doesn’t like yam in whatever form. Cooked, fried, or pounded, she doesn’t eat yam. But when she was pregnant with her first child, she was fighting over yam with her husband all the time.
She said that her husband was surprised about the sudden turn of events and kept asking her if she was okay.
“There was a day he cooked boiled yam and fried eggs with corned beef for dinner and I kept reminding him to keep some for me because I would be hungry by midnight. He turned and looked at me and shook his head”, Ajayi said.
Mrs. Omolara Abiola burst into tears one day when her husband bought a different brand of malt when she was pregnant.
Abiola said: “I told my husband to help me buy Malta Guinness, but he bought Vita Malt and said they don’t have Malta Guinness and I started crying. He went out to about four stores but couldn’t get Malta Guinness.”
According to Abiola, when he came back home without a bottle of the Malta Guinness she was craving, he just sat in the car and was monitoring her through his nephew in the house. He didn’t come in until his nephew told him that she had gone to bed.