Can I eat liquorice while pregnant?

The verdict

There is no single answer here, because the four bodies that have looked at liquorice in pregnancy have reached four different landing places. That is unusual, and it is the most useful thing to know before you read anything else.

Finland puts liquorice and salty liquorice sweets in the "not recommended" column for pregnant women outright. Germany's Federal Institute for Risk Assessment says pregnant women should refrain from continuously consuming large quantities, while stating plainly that the research cannot establish that liquorice caused the effects people worry about. The NHS restricts one specific thing, liquorice root in herbal teas, and says nothing at all about liquorice as a sweet. The EU regulates labelling rather than intake.

None of them says a single liquorice allsort will hurt your baby. All of them are describing regular consumption.

What the substance actually is

The active compound is glycyrrhizic acid, also called glycyrrhizin. It comes from the root of Glycyrrhiza glabra and is what makes liquorice taste of liquorice. It is also used as a flavouring in products that are not liquorice sweets at all.

The BfR describes the mechanism in adults without any hedging: glycyrrhizic acid in large quantities changes mineral metabolism, causing sodium retention and potassium loss. The consequences it lists are raised blood pressure, water retention in the tissue, and muscle weakness. That is a known pharmacological effect, not a hypothesis, and it applies to everybody, not only to pregnancy.

The pregnancy-specific question is different and much less settled: whether glycyrrhizin crossing the placenta affects the developing baby.

The Finnish study, and why two countries read it differently

Almost every warning you will find online traces back to one Helsinki birth cohort followed by Räikkönen and colleagues, with results published in 2009, 2010 and 2017. It compared children whose mothers ate more than 250g of liquorice a week in pregnancy, roughly 500mg of glycyrrhizic acid, with children whose mothers ate none or around 125g a week.

Finland's food authority acted on it. Its guidance table for pregnant women lists liquorice and salty liquorice sweets as not recommended, and gives the reason in its own words: glycyrrhizin, for which the safe intake is not known, and which in high amounts increases blood pressure, causes swelling, may carry a risk of miscarriage and can be linked with developmental disorders of the child. It adds, importantly, that small doses such as a serving of liquorice ice cream or a few sweets are not harmful.

Germany read the same papers and reached a different conclusion. The BfR, agreeing with Norway's scientific committee, concluded that the data collected in the study are not suitable for making reliable statements about a possible causal relationship between liquorice in pregnancy and children's physical and mental development.

The specific criticisms

The BfR sets out exactly what it does not trust, which is more helpful than a verdict:

• Liquorice intake was recorded retrospectively, when the women were admitted to the maternity ward, not prospectively during pregnancy.
• The cohort began in 1998 with more than 1,000 pregnant women, but only about a third of the mothers and children were still available for the 2009 to 2011 follow-up, and it is not known how those who stayed differed from those who left.
• It is questionable whether the statistically significant differences between the children of high and low consumers have any clinical relevance.
• Observational studies are generally not able to establish causation on their own.

The study's own authors, replying to a published commentary in 2017, agreed that their data do not allow reliable conclusions about causation, and said further work including mechanistic data would be needed.

So the honest position is not "liquorice harms babies" and not "liquorice is proven safe". It is that one observational cohort found differences, nobody has been able to confirm or exclude a causal link since, and two national risk assessment bodies looked at identical evidence and made different policy calls.

What the UK actually restricts

This is where people get confused, because the NHS does mention liquorice, but not the kind most people are asking about.

The NHS list of foods to avoid in pregnancy names herbal teas containing liquorice root under drinks to avoid, and states that liquorice root may be harmful to your baby's development. That sits alongside a separate limit of no more than four cups of herbal tea a day. Liquorice sweets, liquorice allsorts, Pontefract cakes and salty liquorice appear nowhere on the page.

The NHS repeats the caution in one other place, which is worth knowing if you are quitting smoking. Its stop smoking in pregnancy page advises avoiding liquorice-flavoured nicotine products, notes there is no known risk from small amounts of liquorice flavouring, and says the manufacturers' caution is based on the adverse effects associated with excessive amounts of liquorice root. Its practical suggestion is simply to pick a fruit or mint flavour instead.

The numbers on the packet

There is no legal maximum level for glycyrrhizic acid in food across the EU, and the UK inherited the same position. What exists is labelling.

Under the EU food information rules, confectionery containing glycyrrhizic acid or its ammonium salt at 100mg/kg or above must carry the words "contains liquorice". From 4g/kg it must carry a longer statement: contains liquorice, people suffering from hypertension should avoid excessive consumption. That second sentence is aimed at blood pressure in the general population, not at pregnancy.

The old EU Scientific Committee on Food could not derive an acceptable daily intake for glycyrrhizic acid in 2003, but assessed an intake of 100mg a day as being of no health concern for most population groups, while warning that real intakes were probably being underestimated. That 100mg figure is where any "safe amount" claim you read online comes from, and it was never a pregnancy-specific number.

What this means in practice

If you have eaten liquorice through this pregnancy already, nothing here suggests you should worry about it. Finland's own guidance says explicitly that small doses are not harmful, and Germany's assessment is that causation was never demonstrated.

If you are a heavy liquorice eater, the argument for cutting back is stronger, and it does not depend on the disputed developmental question at all. Raised blood pressure and fluid retention are the last two things you want added to a pregnancy that already tends towards both, and those effects are undisputed.

Check labels rather than names. Glycyrrhizic acid turns up in some herbal teas, some throat sweets, some Dutch and Nordic salted liquorice, and occasionally in flavoured drinks. The "contains liquorice" statement is the reliable signal, not the colour of the sweet.

Where guidance differs

Finland is the strictest. Liquorice sits in its not-recommended list for pregnant women, with no quantity attached, though its own text says a few sweets are not harmful.

Germany takes the middle position. The BfR rejects the causal claim, and still advises pregnant women, along with people with high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, not to consume large quantities continuously. That recommendation dates back to 1999 and the BfR reaffirmed it in 2023.

The UK regulates the root, not the sweet. Liquorice root in herbal tea is on the NHS avoid list. Liquorice confectionery is not mentioned in NHS pregnancy advice at all.

Nobody sets a pregnancy intake limit. The 100mg a day figure came from a general-population assessment in 2003, and no authority has since converted it into a pregnancy number.