How To Help Nausea And Vomiting During Pregnancy

What Medications Are Available To Treat Morning Sickness

Your healthcare provider may recommend taking vitamin B6 and doxylamine. Doxylamine is also used as a sleep aid and to treat hay fever or other allergies. Both products are available over-the-counter and dont need a prescription. However, there is a pill that contains the combination of these 2 products. It is available by prescription only and is known by the trade name Diclegis®. Unlike the separate over-the-counter products, Diclegis® is a slow-release single pill. This may be more convenient or helpful for women who have trouble taking many pills per day.

Medications to prevent nausea can also be prescribed. If these drugs dont help, other drug classes can be tried including antihistamines and anticholinergics. You and your healthcare provider will decide which medications work best for you.

Avoid Computer Monitor Flicker

A computer monitor flickers rapidly and almost unnoticeably. This may contribute to morning sickness.

If it is not possible to avoid using a computer monitor, it may help to adjust the screen by making the fonts bold and larger and changing the background to a soft tan or pink color. This will help reduce eye strain.

The Myth Of Hysteria And Morning Sickness

Unrelenting morning sickness can have a profound effect on your quality of life, preventing you from working, socialising and looking after your other children.Pregnant women enduring morning sickness report higher levels of psychological stress, including anxiety and depression. This prompted the false belief that morning sickness is purely psychosomatic, which means that the womans fears and anxieties trigger her physical discomfort. However, there is no research to support these claims.

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Talk About Your Morning Sickness

You may be all about self-sufficiency and powering through your pregnancy, but being vocal about your feelings can help alleviate morning sickness misery. Your partner probably doesn’t know that their scented soap makes you queasy, or that giving you a kiss post pizza dinner, without brushing their teeth first gets your gag reflex going. So tell them, and let them know what little changes they can make to help you feel better.

Your pregnancy nausea may seem to come and go, but by tuning into your body and surroundings, you might find the queasiness isn’t so random. If you find yourself getting nauseated at the same time every evening, says Erick, it may be from the smells of your neighbors’ cooking. Queasy at 3 p.m.? A coworker’s afternoon popcorn habit could be the culprit. Once you’ve identified morning sickness triggers, you can take the appropriate steps to avoid them whenever possible.

What Are The Symptoms Of Morning Sickness During Pregnancy

While some experience nausea and vomiting only in the morning, a majority of pregnant women experience nausea intermittently, all day long. The common symptoms are as follows:

• Increased saliva production, sensitivity to odors, and change in taste.

• Hyperemesis gravidarum: This is a medical condition when nausea and vomiting result in about 5% or more weight loss in an expecting woman. This might be a result of dehydration and requires hospitalization. It is much worse than normal nausea and morning sickness.

Listed below are some amazing home remedies that can offer quick relief and help treat nausea and morning sickness over time.

• Almonds

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Ways To Manage Morning Sickness

Nausea and vomiting in pregnancy can happen for many reasons. About 65 per cent of women have nausea and vomiting while pregnant. It often starts at about 4 to 8 weeks of pregnancy and continues to 12 to 16 weeks or more for some women.

Although its often called morning sickness, nausea and vomiting can happen any time of the day or night.

What Causes Nausea In Pregnancy

No one actually knows what causes morning sickness. Also known as nausea and vomiting during pregnancy.

It is speculated that the extreme change in hormones may be to blame. Also the enhanced sense of smell and taste that you experience during pregnancy may contribute to your morning sickness symptoms.

Whatever the cause we just want to get rid of it right? Morning sickness can be terrible! 75% of women experience some sort of nausea during their first trimester. About half of those also experience vomiting.

There is even an extreme case of morning sickness known as Hyperemesis Gravidarum . This is a condition in which you suffer from severe nausea and vomiting all the time and experience weight loss and electrolyte imbalance as a result. If you think you are suffering from HG please consult your doctor or midwife.

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Prenatal nutrition and fitness feels like a mystery to many of us. I mean your doctor hardly even touches on that area at all.

And yet, we now know that what you eat and how active you are while pregnant directly affects your babys genetic outcome, turning on and off certain genes based on your nutrition and fitness!

Hows a mom to know what to eat, what not to eat, and how to safely exercise to have a fit bump-only pregnancy and grow the most healthy baby possible through her diet and exercise?

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Avoid Strong Smelling Foods That Bother You

• Try eating outside in the fresh air if possible.
• Ask someone else to cook, especially trigger foods, hot foods and high smell foods.
• If you have to prepare meals for yourself or others make food you are able to eat and try to make cold foods that are easy to make.
• A breathable mask can be helpful when you have to be in a place where smells are too strong for you. These masks help to block some of the food smell.
• Smelling lemons or lemon essential oils might help settle the stomach.

Possible Causes Of Morning Sickness

The cause of morning sickness remains a mystery, but it is thought a combination of physical and metabolic factors play a significant role, including:

• High levels of hormones, including oestrogen
• Fluctuations in blood pressure, particularly lowered blood pressure
• Altered metabolism of carbohydrates
• The enormous physical and chemical changes that pregnancy triggers.

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Things You Can Try Yourself

If your morning sickness is not too bad, your GP or midwife will initially recommend you try some lifestyle changes:

• get plenty of rest
• avoid foods or smells that make you feel sick
• eat something like dry toast or a plain biscuit before you get out of bed
• eat small, frequent meals of plain foods that are high in carbohydrate and low in fat
• eat cold foods rather than hot ones if the smell of hot meals makes you feel sick
• drink plenty of fluids, such as water
• eat foods or drinks containing ginger there’s some evidence ginger may help reduce nausea and vomiting
• try acupressure there’s some evidence that putting pressure on your wrist, using a special band or bracelet on your forearm, may help relieve the symptoms

Home Or Natural Remedies

• Avoiding foods and smells that trigger your nausea.
• Keeping soda crackers by your bed and eating a couple before getting up. Allow some time for digestion, and rise slowly once you are ready.
• Eating smaller meals more frequently throughout the day instead of three big meals.
• Drinking less water/fluids with your meals, and instead, drink them between meals.
• Eating drier, plain foods such as white rice, dry toast, or a plain baked potato instead of richer, creamier foods.
• Sucking on hard candy.
• Keeping rooms well ventilated or having a fan close by for easier breathing. If neither of these is possible, take time to go outside to get some fresh air.
• Getting plenty of rest Listen to your body when you are feeling fatigued, and try lying down.
• Sniffing ginger or lemons, or drinking ginger ale or lemonade, which can help ease the feeling of nausea.
• Talking with your healthcare provider about the prenatal vitamins you are taking having too much iron may cause nausea, and switching to a different vitamin could help.
• Asking your healthcare provider about taking a vitamin B-6 supplement, which has proven to help reduce nausea and vomiting.

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What Are The Symptoms

We list some symptoms related to nausea in early pregnancy:

• Feeling sick in the morning in a large proportion and to a lesser extent in the rest of the menstrual periods, feeling sick often begins after 6 weeks of the last menstruation
• Feeling exhausted.
• An urgent desire to vomit.
• Bad mood and feeling uncomfortable.
• Loss of appetite and aversion to eating.
• Feeling sick when moving or when riding in a car.

These symptoms vary and differ in severity from one woman to another, each according to the hormonal changes that occur to her.

Eat Whatever You Can Whenever You Can

One of the reasons that morning sickness can be worse in the morning is that having an empty stomach tends to bring it on.

But when all the healthy food is gross, your stomach might be empty a lot.

So dont worry about nutrition, dont worry about calories. If you find something that you can eat, eat it. For weeks I stressed about nutrition. One day I spent half an hour forcing down a protein powder and fruit smoothie. It was SO awful. But I got it down.

And I kept it down for approx 3.5 minutes. Nutrition is extremely important during pregnancy, but surviving the nausea is just as important.

The day I discovered that I could eat potatoes was the best day. Any form of potatoes! And I could eat cold white food. Ice cream, plain yogurt, vanilla milkshakes. Those things were all ok.

I admitted to my doctor that I was eating nothing but potatoes and ice cream, expecting a lecture. I was SO relieved that he just laughed and assured me that my baby was more like a parasite than a pet, and it would take what it needed from me.

You will feel one hundred times less nauseous if you feed yourself SOMETHING. Beyond this wonderfully helpful advice Carly Campbell has lots more great advice for surviving the first trimester even beyond morning sickness.

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How Soon Can You Get Morning Sickness

Your doctor may ask for a urine sample to check for ketones, which is a chemical found in dehydration. In severe cases, your doctor may also take blood samples to check your blood sugar, electrolyte levels, liver function, or levels of certain hormones.

These tests may help your doctor determine your level of dehydration.

They may also help decide if a different condition is causing your nausea and vomiting, such as a urinary tract infection, hepatitis, or gallstones.

Depending on how far along you are in your pregnancy, the doctor may also check the baby’s health by listening for a heartbeat with a Doppler instrument, or by ultrasonography.

Your doctor may diagnose hyperemesis gravidarum only after excluding other serious illnesses. The following are other disorders that may show symptoms similar to hyperemesis gravidarum:

• Side effects from too much of a certain drug
• Liver and gastrointestinal disorders
• Preeclampsia: A toxic condition that develops in late pregnancy and causes a sudden rise in blood pressure, excessive weight gain, fluid build-up, albumin in your urine, severe headache, and visual disturbances.

Vitamin supplements

Acupressure

• Stimulation of the P6 acupressure point on the wrist has been suggested as a method to reduce nausea and vomiting.
• You can press on this area with your finger or thumb or buy an acupressure band. These bands are often sold as motion sickness treatments, so check with a local drug store or auto club.

Over-the-counter medications

Have Anything Made Of Ginger

The bioactive components can help reduce the symptoms associated with nausea. It can be consumed as a tea, or dried ginger candies, or ginger biscuits, etc.

As you already know, prevention is always better than cure. Listed below are a few tips to help you deal with vomiting during pregnancy.

• Have small snacks at regular intervals.
• Dont lie down immediately after eating.

• Do not get up immediately on waking up. Sit for a few minutes and relax before getting out of the bed.

• Avoid foods that make you nauseous.

• Consume foods that are served at a cold or normal temperature. This is because hot foods have a stronger aroma and might induce vomiting.

• Steer clear of spicy, fried, and fatty foods as they irritate your digestive system and are hard to digest.

• Sip on fluids throughout the day to stay hydrated.

• Get some fresh air by taking a walk or opening the window.

• Get ample amounts of rest and take small naps at regular intervals.

• Try wearing an acupressure band on your wrist. Although this band is designed to help those who become seasick easily, it is also used by pregnant women to avoid vomiting and morning sickness .

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Additional Tips To Reduce Nausea

In addition to the tips above, a few other recommendations may decrease the likelihood of nausea or help relieve its symptoms. The most common include :

Nausea Help During Pregnancy

Treatment for and prevention of nausea during pregnancy is truly synonymous in regards to everyday self-care and home remedies. The following suggestions are beneficial to try as soon as you find out you are pregnant or if you are already pregnant and just looking for some relief. Look at the steps below, and explore our guide to managing morning sickness.

To help prevent and treat nausea during pregnancy, try:

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Stick To Foods That Appeal To You

Chances are you’ll be able to find a few healthy foods that you can keep down. Theyll take care of most of your nutritional requirements until a more varied diet becomes palatable.

Remember that no one food has a monopoly on any particular nutrient or meal. For example, you can get your vitamin A and protein from peaches and yogurt at dinner instead of broccoli and chicken. Or have pasta for breakfast instead of cereal.

Don’t worry too much about getting your daily dozen in the short term. There will be plenty of time later on in your pregnancy for eating well.

When Should I Seek Treatment For Nausea And Vomiting During Pregnancy

If the nausea and vomiting is severe and persistent it may be more than just regular morning sickness. It could be a type of severe morning sickness called hyperemesis gravidarum or signs of another medical condition, such as a urinary tract infection, and may require medical attention.

Consult your obstetrician-gynecologist or other obstetric care provider if your symptoms are severe, persistent or are causing you any concerns. Especially see your doctor if you cant keep down any food or water, youre losing weight and peeing less often than usual.

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Stamp Out Offensive Smells

Thanks to your more sensitive sense of smell, some scents may be suddenly offensive or even sickening. So stay away from smells that trigger nausea, whether its the curry from your favorite takeout place or your formerly favorite perfume.

A few other tactics can help. Try microwaving food, which usually results in fewer odors, and open the windows when you cook. Leave any place that smells so strong its making you ill. And wash your clothes more often with a lightly-scented detergent to get rid of encrusted smells.

Steer clear, too, of foods that you cant stand the sight of. Raw chicken, for example, is a common culprit.

Effective Ways To Stop Vomiting During Pregnancy

Morning sickness is a very natural phenomenon during the early phases of pregnancy. Every pregnant woman experiences nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. The vomiting lasts for the first trimester usually and then disappears. There are many effective ways to treat morning sickness during pregnancy.

Natural remedies like ginger, peppermint and lemon are sure shot ways to keep the vomiting at bay. Also chamomile oil, apple cider vinegar, broccoli and fennel are very useful remedies for morning sickness. Staying hydrated and doing acupressure during this time is also very effective. Even cinnamon and cloves are useful home remedies for vomiting during pregnancy.

The effective ways to stop vomiting during pregnancy are given below:

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Can Hyperemesis Gravidarum Be Prevented

Although there are no known ways to completely prevent hyperemesis gravidarum, the following measures might help keep morning sickness from becoming severe:

• Eating small, frequent meals.
• Waiting until nausea has improved before taking iron supplements.
• Using a pressure-point wrist band, vitamin B6 and/or ginger, as recommended by a healthcare provider.

Keep Physically And Mentally Active

Being physically active has been found to improve symptoms in women who experience nausea during pregnancy.

Keeping busy can help take your mind off the feelings of nausea. Reading a book, doing puzzles, watching television, playing cards, or going for short walks around the block will help to keep you preoccupied.

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Tap Into The Power Of Ginger

Ginger is safe and effective in relieving nausea caused by morning sickness. But it doesnt seem to work for vomiting.

Ginger comes in many forms. Moms- to-be can take ginger supplements three or four times a day, with a total daily dose of about 1 gram. Foods that contain ginger may also help ease nausea. These include ginger ale, ginger lollipops, and ginger tea.