Bav­ina Sookdeo

Ah­hh...the many joys of preg­nan­cy. Yes, some peo­ple have a per­fect­ly fine preg­nan­cy but then there are those who just wish to get it over with. Preg­nan­cy makes so many women sick to the stom­ach (lit­er­al­ly)! Al­most half the num­ber of preg­nant women suf­fers with morn­ing sick­ness and we're cer­tain none of them en­joy it. So what can you do about morn­ing sick­ness?

WHAT IS IT?

Morn­ing sick­ness, al­so known as nau­sea gravi­darum, is in fact vom­it­ing dur­ing preg­nan­cy. While it is called 'morn­ing sick­ness', this nau­sea can oc­cur at any time of day, typ­i­cal­ly dur­ing the first few months of preg­nan­cy. What caus­es this thing that makes you so mis­er­able? Gen­er­al­ly, morn­ing sick­ness is caused by an in­crease in hor­mones, low blood counts and a keen­er sense of smell. Some women may be 'at­tacked' by morn­ing sick­ness so much that they may be­come de­hy­drat­ed and even mal­nour­ished. Many may need to re­ceive much need­ed nour­ish­ment in­tra­venous­ly.

NO­TICE WHAT YOU EAT

How do you pre­vent be­com­ing mal­nour­ished and stop that morn­ing sick­ness drag­on from show­ing its ug­ly head? The safest and best step to take is chang­ing your di­et. Morn­ing sick­ness suf­fer­ers should stay away from fat­ty and spicy foods as well as caf­feine. You can have salty crack­ers, ap­ples, ba­nanas and cit­rus. Some med­ical web­sites sug­gest hav­ing a high-pro­tein snack or meal at nights so blood-glu­cose lev­els will be reg­u­lat­ed. Dur­ing preg­nan­cy it is al­so very im­por­tant to watch your por­tions. The im­por­tant thing is to al­ways have food in your stom­ach as this would help to low­er nau­sea. There­fore, hav­ing more but small­er meals may prove to be a suc­cess­ful way of treat­ing morn­ing sick­ness. It is not rec­om­mend­ed to take a nap af­ter meals (pop­u­lar amongst many here in Trinidad and To­ba­go) since this may in­crease nau­sea. It is sug­gest­ed too that you eat bland meals and please, stay away from foods and smells you know would make you nau­seous. Drink­ing enough flu­ids is al­so im­por­tant. It is sug­gest­ed that you drink your flu­ids half an hour be­fore or af­ter a meal, but not with your meal. The dai­ly in­take of vi­t­a­min B6 (50 mg) has al­so shown to help with nau­sea. (See the list of sug­gest­ed foods on page.)

SWITCH THINGS UP A BIT

The next step you can is to change your rou­tine. Sim­ple things you can do may low­er your chances of be­com­ing nau­seous. If you're a worka­holic then you need to check your­self. Get lots of rest! Don't rush out of bed. Give your­self at least an hour to get out of bed...this means that if you have to be up by 7am you should set your alarm for 6am. You should al­so go to bed ear­ly since you need to get enough rest and tak­ing naps dur­ing the day may al­so help.

CHANGE COM­PUT­ER SET­TINGS

If you're one of those who must work while you're preg­nant, take note: the flick­er­ing of your com­put­er's mon­i­tor can lead to morn­ing sick­ness. While this 'flick­er­ing' is un­no­tice­able, it is there and you should try to avoid it. If you must slave away be­hind a com­put­er all day then you should ad­just the screen by mak­ing changes that wouldn't strain your eyes � make fonts larg­er and make back­ground colours soft.

EX­ER­CISE, MEDS AND SCENTS

Phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, though it may seem like a re­al task, is al­so nec­es­sary. This has shown to help im­prove symp­toms. Walk­ing is al­ways good, so do these wear­ing com­fort­able shoes.

You may al­so want to con­sid­er acupunc­ture. There are Sea-Bands bracelets which many women wear to re­lieve nau­sea with no neg­a­tive side ef­fects. These bracelets put pres­sure on a spe­cif­ic pres­sure point in the wrist (that can help curb nau­sea).

In ad­di­tion, sniff­ing fresh scents like mint and rose­mary may help re­duce nau­sea. Many preg­nant women sniff limes and they claim that this helps. If you suf­fer from acid re­flux, then tak­ing antacid med­ica­tion be­fore bed­time may re­duce acid lev­els and help ease the vom­it­ing the fol­low­ing morn­ing. Doc­tors may al­so pre­scribe iron sup­ple­ments for you. These may make you quite nau­seous too, so ask your doc­tor to rec­om­mend a low­er dosage or even one that re­leas­es slow­er. Wear­ing loose, com­fort­able cloth­ing may al­so help take that tight nau­seous feel­ing away and keep­ing your mind fo­cused on oth­er things (be­sides your nau­sea) may help re­duce your symp­toms.All the best to you and your ba­by and I hope your morn­ing sick­ness eas­es with these tips.