The majority of women experience morning sickness during the early months of pregnancy. Changes in hormones associated with the pregnancy trigger this nausea. The severity and capability to cope vary widely. Some women find it just a minor irritation while for others it severely disrupts their normal functioning. Morning sickness has no adverse effect on the baby’s health. Usually, its impact on the mother’s health is mild, but occasionally the sickness is so severe that it needs hospital care. Sufferers can expect the sickness to go away four or five months into the pregnancy.

Make sure to drink sufficient water

Every person must make sure to stay well hydrated. The effective working of bodily organs depends on adequate water intake. This rule applies to all people, but it has an additional relevance to pregnant women because of the direct link between dehydration and nausea. During the day, to reduce the risk of vomiting, she should regularly drink small amounts of water.

A little detective work

Morning sickness experiences vary between women and from one pregnancy to the next. Often the sickness seems to follow a certain pattern, for example, it comes on at a certain time each day. Follow up these clues to discover sickness activators it should be possible to avoid. Suppose a woman starts to feel nauseous when their work colleague takes out a salami sandwich for lunch. If possible, arrange to go out of the office for a few minutes at that time to avoid a situation that seems to set off a morning sickness attack.

When you need to see a doctor

If morning sickness is relatively mild, or one of these home treatments keeps the condition under control, there is no need to involve a doctor. However, it is important to know when to consult a doctor. If a pregnant woman has a fever of (or higher), she needs to visit a doctor. She must also go to the doctor if she feels stomach pains, vomits blood or is she keeps vomiting up food and drinks over 24 hours. Feeling faint when you try to stand up, dark-colored urine and constipation for half a day or so, are additional reasons to seek medical assistance immediately.

Changes to diet

The connection between diet and general health is now widely appreciated, so it comes as no surprise to discover changes in diet can ease morning sickness symptoms. If a woman feels sick in the morning, doctors recommend that she eat some dry toast or a biscuit before getting up. To reduce the risk of vomiting, she should regularly drink small amounts of water during the day. Cold foods are less likely to trigger nausea than hot foods, and it also helps to eat high carbohydrate but low-fat foods such as rice and pasta.

Helpful lifestyle adjustments

During the morning sickness period, it makes sense to avoid the activities most likely to spark off an attack of nausea. If possible, ask another household member to take over food preparation tasks. If this is impractical, restrict cooking to plain foods such as baked potatoes and obviously avoid handling foods that might trigger nausea. It also helps to avoid wearing tight-fitting clothes. Also, try to keep busy, so the mind does not have time to focus on morning sickness concerns.

Medications

Often changes in diet and lifestyle are sufficient to relieve the severity of morning sickness so that no further action is required, but for some women, these changes might not make a big enough difference. In the 1960s, women in the received a drug against morning sickness that caused them to have deformed babies. It is therefore easy to appreciate concerns about taking medications, but today safe medications are available. For example, British doctors commonly prescribe antihistamine medications for symptom relief; similar medications help hay fever and other allergy sufferers.

See if some ginger will help

People have become more aware of the health benefits of including this spice in meal plans. Although we still lack concrete scientific proofs, we have plenty of anecdotal evidence that ginger can reduce nausea during pregnancy. There are also no reports of any women or babies harmed by it. Ginger products are readily available in supermarkets and pharmacies as well as health food stores. Even old-fashioned ginger biscuits and ginger ale could help fight that nausea, so it is worth experimenting.

Acupressure techniques

The theory behind this alternative medicine treatment revolves around the idea that by putting pressure on certain areas of the body you can set in motion certain healing forces. Advocates of acupressure believe that if you put a band on your arm, the brains responds with a chemical reaction that eases morning sickness symptoms. Whether or not their theory accords with the medical reality is open to debate, but there are no serious risks for any pregnant woman who wants to try acupressure.

Aim to get more rest than usual

Since fatigue is a common morning sickness symptom, it makes sense to get as much rest as possible. In certain family or work situations, this may be hard to achieve, but it is worth taking a babysitter or cutting down on working hours while the morning sickness peaks. It makes sense to use up some of those vacation or sick days at this time. The more quality rest the woman gets, the stronger her immune system and thus the less severe morning sickness symptoms are likely to be.

Fight sickness trigger smells with pleasant scents

A pregnant woman soon discovers which smells trigger feelings of nausea. Sometimes they learn to associate these feelings with a particular time of day, for example, when a coworker takes out a certain food during the office lunch break. Since it is not always practical to get away from smells that spark off morning sickness, some women find it helps to neutralize them by carrying a bottle of scent, or a fragrant plant that they sniff at these times.