There is so much to talk about! I'll start with "morning sickness" since this is usually my dead give-away at my work place. Even though it is commonly called "morning sickness" nausea does not always or only occur in the mornings. The medical term for this is hyperemesis gravidarum. It can last all day! Hide it as I may try, people usually grow suspicious when they hear me hurling in the bathroom. I had it the worse with my first where I even lost weight during the 1st trimester. It was somewhat improved with my second child where although I was pretty sick to the stomach, I did not actually vomit enough to lose weight. With this third child, I actually experienced very little nausea and I think it is because I was training for a marathon and didn't even know I was pregnant until 3 weeks before my race! Exercise is known to help with 1st trimester symptoms and I can now say first hand that it definitely helped my nausea!
Usually, nausea starts at around week 6 and lasts into the beginning of the second trimester. Most people feel much better by week 14 or 15, however, there are some reports of unfortunate souls who have nausea the entire pregnancy. Some folks have it so severely that they end up needing to go to the hospital for IV fluids. The important thing is to stay hydrated.
So some things that may help with nausea include:
- eating small frequent meals especially foods that are high in protein and complex carbs
- having cheese or crackers by the bedside so you can eat before sleep and even before getting out of bed
- drink water water water!
- ginger (I can't eat this plain but they make ginger candy) and ginger ale helps
- switching to different prenatal vitamin or take different time of day (this definitely made me sick that I had to resort to gummy vitamins)
- supplement with vitamin B6 (I tried this... maybe it helped)
- sea bands (I bought them... I personally did not find it too helpful but maybe I was just too sick for anything to help)
If it is so bad that you are losing weight... then you may be prescribed something like zantac, phenergan, reglan or zofran. You have to talk to your OB to see what is right for you.
So with this child, I actually experienced very little nausea/vomiting! That is until last night but I think I caught a GI bug. Getting sick while pregnant is a whole other topic... not fun. I'll save it for another post.
