Morning sickness: a collection of remedies

I am relieved to say that my memories of morning sickness are now rather distant and time seems to have given me a sort of soft focus viewing lens. I do, however, remember spending the first of my three pregnancies in a haze of nausea and vomiting.  

It all started like this: my husband and I – newly married - were on an idyllic holiday abroad, I was only a few weeks into my pregnancy with not a symptom in sight, and we pottered around in a little bubble of “early marriage lovey doviness”.

Until, that is, we got mugged at knife point.

Having extracted ourselves from this alarming situation (I told the knife wielding would-be pickpockets to buzz off in my Italian imitation of Spanish) we went back to our hotel and that night, sickness kicked in with a vengeance.

And it wouldn’t stop.

I got back to the UK a few days later and checked into the hospital thinking I had a severe case of food poisoning.

It was a bad case of morning sickness.

I tried all manner of remedies but ultimately, I was very lucky because I didn’t have hyperemesis gravidandum (HG) – which takes morning sickness to a whole new and intolerable level – and it calmed down considerably after week 16.  

These days I see morning sickness second hand in my pregnancy fitness classes, although not surprisingly, those with the very extreme HG never stay long in an exercise class. Simply getting through the day is enough, let alone adding fitness into the equation.

This week I asked mums and mums-to-be I am linked to on facebook what helped with their morning sickness and I got all sorts of responses – some well documented remedies, and others new to me.

I thought I’d share them here with you so that if you are currently suffering from morning sickness then you could at least give them a go.

It’s worth a try.

15 things that mums-to-be have found helpful for fighting morning sickness:

  1. Eating little but often
  2. Sleep
  3. Fresh air
  4. Chewing on celery sticks
  5. Acupressure sickness bands for the wrists
  6. Lemon and ginger herbal infusion
  7. GinGins (chewy ginger pieces)
  8. Diluted apple cider vinegar
  9. Sleeping on your left side
  10. Putting the food to cook in a slow cooker in the morning before going out to work so that the meal is ready in the evening
  11. Avoiding fried foods even if you crave them
  12. Keeping hydrated
  13. Acupuncture
  14. Eating Quavers and Wotsits (note from editor: interesting one!)
  15. Sucking on Polo Mints

Finally, one mum-to-be – Donna – forwarded this blog link to me as she has found it helpful. It’s very detailed and written by someone who has had terrible morning sickness and HG in all 8 – yes that’s EIGHT – of her pregnancies.  

If you have had experience of anything else that has been helpful in managing morning sickness than LET ME KNOW please and I’ll add it to this list and pass it on.

And just to finish off: if you are currently suffering from sickness or HG then here’s  something anecdotal to cheer you up – lots of mums-to-be on facebook told me that whilst they had the most horrendous pregnancy with HG, their birth was textbook perfect.

May yours be too.

 

Jo x