So far I have been experiencing ‘all day sickness’ since about the second week of pregnancy. (By the way, whoever started the phrase “morning sickness” is really wrong – it’s any time of the day really). Surprisingly I find being sick a relief and a sign that the pregnancy is progressing well.  On top of the naturally induced ‘all day sickness’ I have been reacting to the Lovenox shots (kind of embarassing to say), the Foltabs (tiredness), the progesterone (more nausea) and the prenatal vitamins (burping them up, more nausea). I’m looking forward to ending the progesterone at 12 weeks. That will be a happy day for me.

I have had some very different aversions this time around that have taken me by surprise. And my usual remedies aren’t working either. I’m open to suggestions.

What doesn’t work anymore:

• mini saltine crackers
• lemon drops (sugary items don’t interest me, and that is probably good)
• orange juice, or any fruit juice
• anything salty (chips, chicken broth etc.)
• fruit
• small frequent meals

What now works:

• White Cheddar Cheez-its
• sugar-less cereal (plain corn flakes, corn Chex etc.)
• oatmeal without sugar, but raisins and cinnamon okay
• plain baked  potato w/ a little bit of light ranch

I’ve been told that cinnamon gum or mouthwash works well. I am half tempted to brush my teeth after every meal to get rid of any food taste in my mouth. I’ve noticed that if I taste anything that I have eaten I start to feel a wave of nausea coming on (or what I call the preggy pukies).  Any suggestions?

Update on the daily shots: my large bruises are finally healing. I haven’t had any new bruising since the fourth and fifth shots. There are small, pea sized bruising, but nothing like the larger-than-a-potato-chip bruises. There is hope for a cute pregnany belly after all

Claire Batten BSc. (Hons) Occupational Therapy

Feeling ‘queasy’, nausea and vomiting are all part of morning sickness. Although it is called ‘morning sickness’ it can happen at any time of the day or night. It can last for a few hours or indeed last the whole day. Between 50-80% of pregnant women experience morning sickness while pregnant.

Nausea is more common in first pregnancies, young women and multiple pregnancies. That being said it has been my experience and that of many women I have helped, that morning sickness has been worse with each pregnancy. There are ways to help reduce morning sickness and in many cases end it completely.

My Story-Morning sickness and Hyperemesis gravidarum .

Helpful advice and TIPS for Survival.

I terminated 2 pregnacies due to Hyperemesis gravidarum,for those of you who don’t know what that is , it is the worse type pf pregnancy sickness a woman can experience. It is often on going through out the pregnancy and is a 24 hours a day nausea, vomiting, headaches, panics, exhaustion, dehydration and in some cases the inability to keep down, even a sip of water.

My symptoms were this bad on 3 pregnancies and and due to weight loss, mal nutrition and keytones in my body ( which can be quite dangerous), it was decided on the first 2 times that a termination of the pregnancy was the safest option for my health, I was 9 weeks both times.

Last year I fell pregnant again and with in 4 weeks I had Hyperemesis, but this time I some how survived and now have a sweet, healthy miracle of a baby boy.

Maybe I learned how to cope better the 3rd time round but it was still a long and hard journey and the first 5 months were a blur of sickness and living in a body I couldn’t escape from, which felt like hell.

Medical research is not 100% clear why women feel so sick in the first few months of pregnancy, morning sickness for most women tends to last just the first trimester (3-4 months) but after reading huge volumes of research on the subject and talking to many others I believe the cause to be down to 2 main things.

One is pregnancy hormones that are pumped into the body mostly in the first 3 months when the body has to go through lots of changes to build the sack for the baby to live in and the placenta for the baby to feed from and you basically become a house for a baby to grow. These pregnancy hormones can make you very sick as they upset the digestion and stomach acids and many other things.

Another reason for morning sickness that I came across is that the foteus in the first 3 months is not protected from toxins that are found naturally in some of our foods. Un til the babie’s organs are fully developed the baby has no immune system against these toxins.They appear in larger amounts in foods like coffee, chillies, herbs, and dark green bitter vegtables like spinich and sprouts. Often even the smell or sight of these things to a pregnant woman in the first 3 montns will make her throw up and this is the body’s way of the baby remaining safe and strong as these toxins could be harmful to the baby in large quantities, so every time you are sick you are protecting your baby. The toxins from your previous day food is pushed back up into the stomach the following morning and sends a message to your brain to make you sick.

There are things you can do to help you cope that will help to ease the symptoms, some things will work for you better than others as we all have diffirent bodies.

I have written out my top survival tips at the end of this article and I hope something you read here will be useful.

There will also be things that people reccomended to you that may make you worse for instance Ginger root was recommended by nearly every one but for me did not help at all, though it is very good for other sicknesses I found it always made me much more sick and I later found out that it is packed full of natural toxins which are best avoided in the first trimester any way.

Other things many women try that did not work for me are accupunture which I am a great believer in normally. I could only afford 1 hour a week and unfortunately it made no difference what so ever, maybe if I was able to afford it every day it would have eventually worked.

I also downloaded an ebook for around 20 pounds claiming to contain a secret that would remove the pregnancy sickness forever ! as you can imagine I brought it in an instant, it explained a therapy called EFT which is where you tap parts of the body and face that represent energy points and repeat an affirmation about the sickness. I had learned all about EFT years earlier and had used it very succesfully to get rid of my flying phobia but with the pregnancy sickness it made no difference for me and infact I was convinced I was more sick on the days I did it. I also believe that nothing should claim to totally remove morning sickness forever, as it seems it does actually serve an important purpose and that is to remove any foods or toxins that maybe harmful to the baby, so it is also something we should try to be grateful for, though I know it’s hard.

I also totally disagree with all the different pills my doctor perscribed for me. After researching the ingredients of these tablets some of them seemed to be doing more harm than good, and numbing the feeling to be sick when it could be protecting your fetus is maybe not a good idea. I just did not feel comfortable with taking pills and that the side effects were not fully known.I would suggest taking the odd one only on certain occasions, when things are getting real hard to cope with or to try and avoid them all together.

Here are my survival tips and the things that helped me through the pregnancy sickness.

1. SUPPORT-I can not stress enough how important it is to have another person’s support.

Whether you have a partner/husband, best friend, sister or mother.Having some one there to bring you the sick bucket in the night, to bring you dry toast at 5 am, to tell you its all going to be ok when things get hard, really make the biggest difference in the world.

2.KNOW THAT IT DOES GET BETTER-Know that it does get better, if you have morning sickness or even full hypermesis you must remind your self that it does get better.

For me, last time I was pregnant it took nearly 6 months for the hypermesis to finally calm down. I was still sick daily right up untill the birth but by month 7 I was eating normal meals and the sick feeling only came in the mornings and was very mild.IT DOES GET BETTER. IT DOES END.

Some times when you feel sick every day you forget that one day it will go, so just keep reminding your self that this is only a temporary condition.

3.EAT WHAT YOU CAN- Get what you can in there. I know food is a hard thing but a few bites of dry toast or crackers will help dilute the hormones in your body and make you feel less sick.

No matter what you crave or what it is, eat it !!! as long as its not sand or coal, eat it. I got cravings for lemons and was consuming around 20 a day, mostly in the form of drink. Maybe my body needed something in them. Be prepared also to suddenly find your craving has switched to replusion as after about 2 weeks of lemons the sight of one made me instantly sick and I craved something else. Listen to your body and just eat what ever your body wants.

4.POWDERED VITAMINS-Get powered capsule pregnancy vitamins. The best ones I found were pregnancy lactating formula by Bio Care. Hard pills will just sit in your stomach and for me just came back up.

Your digestion is also very slow and sensitive and the powered ones will absorb quicker into your blood stream and get to your baby better. You can sprinkle them over your food to help them absorb in your stomach.

5.MORNING WELL CD-This is a cd of sounds and music that you can buy from the morning well website for around 20 quid which plays for about 20 mins and sends signals into the brain to reduce the nausea feeling and the sickness. For me, it never took the sickness away completely but IT DID HELP and I did use it for about 3 months especially in the worse times. It also gave me something to focus on and I would recomend getting it.

6.Fresh Air-This is hard when you are in bed most days sick and unable to move due to the tiredness you get in the first 3 months, but if you can force your self up and go where there is some nature, trees, beach, park you are likely to feel much better. The air will clean your lungs and refesh you.

I used to make my way to the local river and be sick there, sounds strange, but the sound and smell of the rushing water gave me some kind of comfort and helped me cope when being sick.

7.DON’T GET HOT-Being hot can make you feel a hundred times worse than you already are, try and sleep with a window open and a steady stream of fresh air coming in.

8.AVOID SHOWERS-Yes the shower makes you more sick, many women shared this with me and I also couldn’t stand the shower, after 1 or 2 minutes in there I would feel awful. I never worked out what it was, maybe the motion of the water.Try making your shower very quick or have a shallow bath wash instead.

9.DON’T RESIST BEING SICK OR FEEL BAD-Don’t ever feel like a failure because you are being sick. Do not try and stop your self or hold it in, if it’s there get it out !!

You will always feel better after being sick and it will not go away by ignoring it.

If you can eat after being sick, then do it, if you are just sick again, then so be it. Just accept it and keep on going.

10.KEEP A DIARY-I found this really helpful. I wrote down what I managed to eat and drink and what times I was sick and how I felt during the day.

When you look at it over a week or so you can often see clearly things that are helping or making it worse that you would not other wise notice.

11.IS THE BABY GETTING ENOUGH FOOD WORRY-Don’t worry about the baby getting enough food, in the first 3 months a foteus needs very little food to survive. It is more important that you can keep the body hydrated with regular sips of water.

12.SLEEP WHEN YOU CAN-Any time the sickness is not too bad, maybe a certain time of the day it eases off a little, use this time to sleep.Through out the night you are probably not sleeping well and your body at this stage need all the rest and sleep it can get.

Important-If you have not eating anything for 2 days or more and more importantly if you have not kept in any liquid for 24 hours get medical attention URGENTLY, the chances are you will have to stay in hospital and be hydrated on a drip, many women with hypermesis go in and out of hospital throught out the pregnancy gettting hydrated when they can not orally take down fluids.

I stupidly left it very late the second time I had. Hyperemesis I had not eating for days and not drunk anything, the time I got to hospital I had mal nutrition and was dangerously dehydrated which caused other complications. I should have gone to hospital much sooner !!!

So don’t wait around. If you are very sick get to your doctors immediately.

FOOD I MANAGED TO EAT AND KEEP DOWN >

1.Plain boiled rice and dry turkey meat just plain and dry . (This proves very popular in women with morning sickness).

2.Tin tomatoes and small plain potatoes(not too many)

3.Rice cakes

4.Dry toast

5.Dry crackers/biscuits

6.Bananas

7.Yogurt

8.Smoothies (an excelant way to get vitamins)

9.Rice krispies and other cereals

Avoid >

1.Any thing that makes you feel sick or any thing you do not like the smell or look of.

2.Oils, fats, greasy foods

3.Sweet food.

4.Food or drink with artificial colours, additives or sweetners.

5.Spicy or salty food

Keep food as simple, dry and bland as possible.

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The other day I was talking with a Grandmother about a recent visit from her Granddaughter. She was telling me how great the visit had been right up until they got to the airport when her 2 year old granddaughter starting vomiting.

That made me recall a trip with my then 18 month old twins when my daughter threw up all over seat 18F on a Westjet flight to Honolulu (I guess my plan to keep her content on the flight with milk, uh…kind of backfired).

I’m sure you have had an experience where you or your little one got unexpectedly ill and needed a receptacle in a hurry. Well, finally someone has created an airline-style vomit bag that is chic and sassy!

My friend Tara Ramos, mother, world traveller and super chic lady created the “Morning Chicness Bag” after a long pregnancy with daily ‘morning sickness’.