Is black stool normal during pregnancy?

During pregnancy, you will often encounter many bad problems, such as oral ulcers, bleeding gums, constipation, and the most important thing is that the stool is still black. In fact, these are not so bad. If the stool is black, many people will consider it as a factor of bleeding in the digestive tract system, which may come from gastrointestinal problems. Therefore, everyone should pay attention to it in daily life and treat it through some reasonable and simple methods.

Causes of black stools

Some patients with ulcer disease suffer from bleeding without realizing it. The reason is that when the bleeding is slow and the amount of bleeding is small, the naked eye cannot see any change in the color of the stool, and the body's compensatory effect prevents the symptoms of blood loss from appearing.

Only when the bleeding rate is fast and the amount of bleeding is heavy, the patient may find that the characteristics of his stool have changed, such as the discharge of tarry black stools. When the amount of bleeding is larger and faster, dark red bloody stools may be discharged, and even coffee-like substances and blood may be vomited. It may also be accompanied by symptoms such as palpitations, dizziness, thirst, cold sweat, syncope, and shock.

About 10% of patients with ulcer disease and bleeding do not usually have the common symptoms of ulcer disease, and there are no obvious signs before bleeding. Instead, they have sudden heavy bleeding as the first symptom and are only diagnosed with ulcer disease and bleeding after being admitted to the hospital for examination. The vast majority of other ulcer patients who usually have symptoms often experience bleeding due to excessive fatigue, improper diet, mental stress, climate change, and taking certain medications (such as cold medicines and painkillers).

Signs of bleeding include increased upper abdominal pain and nausea. After bleeding, the pain symptoms will be significantly reduced or even disappear completely. This false impression of symptom improvement often misleads patients, causing them to neglect timely medical treatment and result in delays in treatment.

Diagnosis of melena

Black stool generally refers to stool that is black and paste-like in appearance, has little fecal odor but a bloody smell, and has an oily and shiny surface. Because it is similar in shape to tar (asphalt), it is also called tarry stool. Black stools are usually caused by upper gastrointestinal bleeding.

When the red blood cells in the blood decompose in the intestines, the hemoglobin iron, under the action of gastric acid and intestinal bacteria such as Escherichia coli, combines with the sulfide in the feces to become black iron sulfide, making the feces black; and the iron sulfide stimulates the intestinal wall, causing the mucosa to secrete a large amount of mucus, so the stool takes on an oily tar-like luster.