Morning Sickness

Now that you are pregnant, you may be experiencing nausea or vomiting by the end of your first month. Morning sickness is also known as NVP (nausea and vomiting of pregnancy) or pregnancy sickness. As many as 50 to 95% of pregnant women experience morning sickness, which can actually last all day. Many women find relief by the end of their third month, however some expectant mothers are sick throughout their entire pregnancy.

• Your increased levels of estrogen may cause nausea and vomiting.
• Increased human chorionic gonadotropin, a peptide hormone that helps to maintain progesterone production.
• Lowered blood sugar.
• The progesterone relaxes the uterine muscles, and can relax your stomach muscles as well. This will cause symptoms similar to gastroparesis, slowing digestion, resulting in food sitting in your stomach for longer periods. This may explain why you feel sicker in the morning part of your dinner has been sitting in your stomach all night, causing nausea.

Ways to Reduce Morning Sickness

• Keep crackers by your bed at night and eat them as soon as you wake before you get out of bed.
• Avoid spicy and greasy foods.
• Eat smaller meals more frequently at night to reduce the food thatsits in your stomach while you sleep.
• Lemons can help alleviate nausea.  Smell lemons, suck on lemondrops, drink lemonade or frozen lemonade drinks.
• Talk to your OB/GYN about avoiding foods that cause the worstproblems for those who suffer from gastroparesis.  The worst of these is salad, believe it or not.  Cook all vegetables until they are soft, avoiding the more fibrous vegetables.  Eat more chicken and less ground beef and try to avoid fibrous meats such as steak and roast beef.  Do not eat any fried foods, and avoid spicy foods as well.
• It is important to have enough calcium during pregnancy, however you may wish to avoid thick and milky products if these aggravate your morning sickness.  If you find that dairy products make you feel worse, talk to your OB/GYN about ways you can keep your calcium level up.
• If you are sick, you may not want to eat anything.  This mayactually make you feel worse.  Try a piece of bread or cracker.
• Some pregnantmoms actually find salty potato chips settle their stomachs completely opposite of what you hear, but worth a try!
• Eat five or more small meals a day, rather than three large meals.
• Ginger can settle your stomach.  Float a slice of fresh ginger inyour decaffeinated tea, suck on ginger candy or drink ginger ale.
• Purchase Sea Bands, which are non-medicated bands used for therelief of motion sickness.  These slip on to each wrist and have a plastic pressure point on the inside of the band.  The pressure point is to be placed on the inside of your wrist, three fingers down from where your hand meets your wrist.  These are known to take the “edge” off of morning sickness.
• Your increased sensitivity to smells may bring about nausea. If you are craving a particular food, eat that food.
• Stay cool.
• Eat cold food rather than hot food.
• Drink before and after meals, but not with meals.
• Stay upright after eating.
• Stop drinking coffee and other caffeinated beverages.

For Severe Morning Sickness, Your Physician May Prescribe the Following:

• Take a combination of the antihistamine doxylamine and vitamin B6.
• Your OB/GYN may prescribe an anti-nausea medication such as Phenergan, however some of these medications may make you sleepy.
• If you have severe nausea and vomiting, you may have Hyperemesis Gravidarum.  If your symptoms cannot be relieved by other measures, you may be hospitalized so you can receive nutrition, fluid and anti-nausea medication intravenously.

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