Nausea and Vomiting in Pregnancy

Feeling sick to your stomach and vomiting is very common during the first trimester in pregnancy. Many women complain of it occurring in the morning, but it is likely to happen throughout the day if the proper prevention measures aren’t taken. Usually by the fourth month in pregnancy, or the beginning of the second trimester, things will improve.

Well, I’m sure you don’t want to wait for three months to pass to start feeling better so this article will go over a variety of proven steps you can take to make that first trimester more pleasurable. As you read through these tips, just remember that “morning sickness” doesn’t last forever and for some women it lasts less than a month.

• Eat every two to three hours throughout the day even if you’re not hungry. In order to keep nausea at bay, you must keep something in your stomach because an empty stomach can make you feel worse. If you are really having a hard time keeping foods down, go ahead and even eat every hour on the hour but just in tiny amounts of food like half a banana and then an hour later 8 ounces of skim milk for example.

• Before getting out of bed, try to eat something dry and simple like crackers, bread sticks, or dry cereal. Other options include vanilla wafers, pretzels, plain popcorn, and dry toast. These foods have been proven to help you from feeling the typical morning nausea that comes from being disoriented when first getting out of bed.

• Drink fluids in between meals like 100% fruit juice, water, skim milk, or even caffeine-free pop. Keeping fluids down will be extremely important for health reasons if you are vomiting a lot.

• Eat fewer fatty foods and skim fried foods, salad dressings, butter, margarine, bacon, sausage, donuts, or other sweet and fatty foods.

• Try sour or salty food like lemonade or pretzels and chips. These foods often reduce the symptom of nausea in the morning especially but can work throughout the day as well.

• Eat foods that sound good to you. Again, you don’t want to lose much weight during the first three months of the pregnancy so try to eat foods that sound good even if you have to eat the same thing every day for weeks.

• Remember that just the smell of food cooking causes that nauseous feeling. If you must cook, try to cook with a fan running or by an open window. Eating fresh fruit, yogurt, sherbet, hard-boiled eggs, cheese and crackers, and cold sandwiches while preparing a meal for your family can ease the feeling.

• As always, avoid drinking caffeinated beverages like tea, coffee, and soda.

• If you smoke, cut back drastically or better yet stop smoking altogether. There are many resources available, especially for pregnant women, to cut down or quit smoking.

• Be sure to move slowly when running errands or being at work. Sure you don’t want to make a big deal of your pregnancy by slowing down your every move and drawing attention to yourself, but it really does help lesson the nausea.

• Try to rest often by taking a nap during the day and be sure to get plenty of sleep at night. Becoming overly tired makes the nausea worse.

• Try to avoid smells and foods that bother you. Usually smelling a freshly cut lemon helps.

• Finally, take your prenatal vitamin with food or later on in the day. If you think you are getting sick from the prenatal vitamin even after eating it with food and later in the day there are two alternatives. You can either try taking half of the vitamin in the morning and the other half at night OR you can phone your healthcare provider with your symptoms and request another kind of prenatal vitamin. Your provider may offer you a multivitamin or even a chewable prenatal vitamin.

So there you have it. All the tips proven to help prevent or treat nausea. In summary, in order to treat nausea in pregnancy you basically have to avoid the foods and smells that make you feel sick and then try to eat small meals and drink fluids as often as possible in order to prevent nausea and continue to gain weight slowly. It’s as simple as that.

Also, as you begin to follow some of the tips mentioned here; it is important to remember that if you are vomiting more than three times a day you should call your health care provider right away. Also, if things are really severe do not attempt to take any medications without asking your provider first. You can also ask about those fruity little tablets they sell at a variety of stores that are like little vitamins made especially for pregnant women experiencing nausea.