Treat Pregnancy Nausea
For many women the joy of early pregnancy can be overshadowed by the persistent nausea commonly known as morning sickness. Though it's true that pregnancy nausea can be worse during the morning, despite its moniker many women experience it throughout the day. In most cases, pregnancy nausea is simple to treat and abates on its own by the fourth or fifth month of pregnancy.
Instructions
Prevent Morning Sickness
1. Place dry crackers or rice cakes next to your bed and nibble on one before leaving your bed in the morning. Many women report that first thing in the morning is when pregnancy nausea is worst, most likely because their stomachs are empty after a night's rest. Eating something before getting up can help to prevent full-blown vomiting.
2. Keep your stomach full by eating small snacks throughout the day. Pregnancy nausea is often associated with an empty stomach and low blood sugar. Consider breaking your meals into six small ones if three large, heavy meals are too much for you to stomach.
3. Drink fluids before or after meals, but not with food. Fluids are important to replace those lost to vomiting and to neutralize the acidic nature of your stomach. However, the combination of fluids and solids tends not to sit well and may trigger vomiting.
4. Give in to cravings. When you're nauseated and vomiting, your body's need for nutrients is more important than a balanced diet. If the only thing you can keep down is lemonade and cheese puffs, at least you are staying hydrated and fed. When your pregnancy nausea lessens you can go back to a normal diet.
5. Follow your nose, out the door, that is! Pregnant women have a heightened sense of smell and certain strong odors can trigger nausea. The offending odors vary from woman to woman, so you will have to figure out which ones make you feel ill and try to avoid them.
Soothe Your Stomach
6. Rest frequently. Not only can fatigue contribute to morning sickness, but morning sickness can cause weakness and fatigue. Lying down when you feel the most ill and getting a good night's sleep can help to treat nausea.
7. Treat the beginnings of nausea with peppermint and wintergreen. Drink peppermint tea to stay hydrated and suck on peppermint or wintergreen candies to soothe your spasmodic stomach.
8. Use ginger to treat pregnancy nausea. Ginger root is widely employed as an anti-emetic. It can be ingested in many forms: tea, ginger snap cookies, capsules of dried ginger, candied ginger or ginger ale. Make sure to purchase ginger ale with a high concentration of real ginger. Many health foods stores carry beverages called ginger beer, which is a non-alcoholic, spicy ginger ale.
Treat Hyperemesis
9. Call your doctor if you haven't been able to keep down any fluids for more than 12 hours, have a fever, cracked lips or any other signs of dehydration. For reasons unknown to doctors, some women experience a severe form of morning sickness, known as hyperemesis, in which they can't stop vomiting. Hyperemesis requires medical attention.
10. Stay hydrated by going to your doctor's office or to the emergency department to receive IV fluids. In most cases your doctor will make the arrangements. Sometimes the cycle of hyperemesis can be broken by a round of IV fluids because once a woman is rehydrated she may be able to begin keeping down small amounts of liquid.
11. Take prescription anti-emetics if your doctor feels it's necessary. Though no pregnant woman wants to take medications during pregnancy, continuous vomiting and severe dehydration that doesn't respond to IV fluids can put you at risk for miscarriage or threaten the growth of your baby.
12. Gather a support system. Hyperemesis is often misunderstood. Other people don't see the severity of the situation or understand the depression, guilt and despair that comes with being so sick during pregnancy that you are incapacitated. Having family and friends around to support you can help you through this rough time.
Tags: pregnancy nausea, morning sickness, your doctor, during pregnancy, keep down, many women, most cases