I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it again, pregnancy sickness is the worst! To be clear, I’m not talking about the occasional bout of nausea. I am talking about full blown pregnancy sickness. Nausea. Throwing up. Loss of appetite. Starving but you know you’re not going to keep anything down. There has to be some relief.
I spent both of my pregnancies being very sick for the entire first trimester and more. I struggled with the nausea daily. In fact, one time, I was so miserable, I was sitting at my desk and my boss walked by and asked if I was okay. I completely burst into tears on the man, demanding he not ask if I was okay or I was going to start crying. I genuinely hope that your pregnancy sickness is more mild than mine was.
But Karina, what is there to be done about it? Valid question my lovely reader. First off, I want to preface the below solutions. I received every single one of these suggestions and I tried all of them. Some of them worked, some of them didn’t, and some of them were simply beyond my ability. But I am listing all of them just in cases one of them works for you.
1. Eat before you get out of bed in the morning
Often pregnancy sickness is called morning sickness because you feel your worst in the morning. Well that’s because you have essentially fasted through the night. So before you have to roll over in the morning and get out of bed, try padding your stomach with a little pick me up. Even keeping snacks by your bed that you can eat during you late night hike to the bathroom can be helpful.
Now this one is going to be more successful for first time moms and women with partners. I especially found something light such as yogurt with fresh berries to be really helpful. The yogurt would coat my stomach. But I couldn’t very well leave yogurt by my bed all night and my partner at the time certainly wasn’t going to get up to help. So this one felt unobtainable to me. That was especially true with my second child because I had to get out of bed and take care of my first born. I certainly didn’t have time to eat before doing that.
This trick was more successful when I could eat almost immediately upon waking up and before I exerted my body in anyway. Although warning, if your sickness is really bad, be prepared to weave an extra vomiting session into your morning routine.
2. Eat before you take your vitamins
Trying to keep your prenatal vitamins down is really important for your growing baby and for your own body. But it seemed like every time I took them, I would just throw them right back up. Try eating before you take your vitamins to help them sit in your body better. Plus experiment with taking them at different times of the day such as in the evening after dinner instead of in the morning with your first meal.
I personally could never keep them down, no matter what time of day or how much food I ate first. However, I do want to stress the importance of taking them even if you know you are going to throw them up. Even if your body only absorbs a tiny bit of the vitamin, it’s better than nothing. I did tend to have much better results around the evening, especially if I managed to eat something. I could almost never manage to keep them down in the morning though, even if I ate breakfast.
Also consider trying a different type of vitamin. I was originally taking gummy vitamins and to this day, over 3 years later, I still gag thinking about eating a gummy vitamin. The swallow whole pills worked much better for me. I’ve heard the exact opposite from other women though, where they could only manage to eat the gummies and swallowing a pill made them gag. Experiment with the choices to see if anything helps.
3. Eat plenty of protein
Protein provides your body with necessary nutrients to grow a baby and keep moving. Sneaking that into your diet through the day can help pack more punch than a handful of carbs.
I invested in little $1 protein packs and would eat them on my lunch breaks at work. Those worked like a gem because I didn’t feel obligated to eat all of it if I couldn’t (it was just a snack after all) and I rarely failed to keep it down (though it didn’t do much to alleviate my nausea).
I also feel that protein is a much better choice than empty carbs. Some meat and cheese lasted a lot longer for me and settled better than chex mix or goldfish.
4. Eat small meals through the day
The key to keeping hunger at bay is to eat often. Instead of sitting down three times a day to try to choke down a large meal, of which you will likely throw up half of, eat through the entire day. Every hour have a little snack, bonus points if it contains protein.
I do want to be clear that I mean nutritious snacks, not ice cream and cookies all day long. Not even cereal or other empty carbohydrates. Actual, nutritional snacks that will help keep the sickness at bay. Plus, it helps replenish you when you are still sick.
This was at least a little helpful for me, if only to help me get over the 3 meals a day concept. Otherwise I would eat breakfast, be sick, and then have to wait until lunch to eat again when in reality I had lost the vast majority of my breakfast. Breaking it down limited how much I could be sick at any one time and ensured I kept trying to get my body the nutrition is so desperately desired.
5. Keep your food simple
I know some of you ladies are out there adding hot sauce and a pound of spices to every dish you make. And I get that all that flavor tastes better (but can admit I am the white woman whose bland ass salad you do not want at your next barbecue). But during pregnancy your body can have unusual and adverse reactions to food you have eaten before. Also, if you are struggling to keep your food down, having it burn its way back up is never pleasant.
This was actually an easy one for me because nothing sounded good in the first place. I didn’t want food at all, let alone something with flavor that I might have to taste again if I threw it back up.
My original prenatal vitamins were little sugar coated gummy bears. Even that had too much going on. I thought the delicious sugar coating (I definitely have a junk food problem) would help me enjoy it more, but it mostly just turned me off sugar coated vitamins for the rest of my life.
6. Eat whatever you can
Okay, I’ve given you all my suggestion on when and how to eat. Now I’m getting real. If you can find even one thing that you can eat and keep down, I don’t care what it is. If it’s ice cream, carbohydrates, watermelon. Try it all and stick to it. Seriously, something is better than nothing. And if you have to eat chocolate cake so you don’t die of starvation, do it (just plan to have to work it off later).
I spent 3 months straight eating nothing but wheat thins with deli meat and cheese on them. 3 MONTHS. Times 2 because I was pregnant twice. I had a co-worker who commented on it once. I didn’t care. It was literally the only thing I could keep down. I’m not saying you should use pregnancy sickness as an excuse to eat garbage all day every day, but I am saying you gotta do what you gotta do. If you can keep it down, eat it. If it also helps alleviate nausea, even better!
7. Drink plenty of water
Throwing up is going to dehydrate you. There is no getting around it. And I know, throwing up nothing but water is the worst. But you have to keep drinking water. All day every day drink more water than you think you need. The last thing you want is to end up in the hospital due to dehydration.
For clarification, when I say drink, I mean sip. I know it’s easy to feel super parched from throwing up all day. But I can almost guarantee you will throw it back up again if you chug it. So take slow, small sips all through the day.
8. Take B6 and papaya enzyme
Now this advice I got from my midwife, and you probably should run it past your doctor or midwife just to be on the safe side. But supposedly taking B6 and/or papaya enzyme can help alleviate nausea. I didn’t have success with this one, but I felt it was worth including in case it works for you. I also may have been too far gone down the pregnancy sickness hole by the time these options were proposed to me.
Give Sea Bands a try
10. Talk to your doctor
I probably should have started with this one, but I’m talking about more than just mentioning that you are feeling unwell. This point is to ask for something specific: medication.
I found out at one point that there is actually medication you can take for extreme nausea. Many doctors will not prescribe it because there may be unknown affects on your baby. However, I have also learned that some women have such terrible pregnancy sickness and their doctors refuse to listen to their needs and they end up aborting a child they might have otherwise kept. If you are so miserable and desperate that you feel you might not be willing to carry your child to term when otherwise you would want to, it may be worth asking for more than homeopathic remedies and optimistic outlooks. We all know to eat better, and often we will try everything under the sun. But sometimes, plain and simple, we need some medication.
You will notice a pattern here around food. Pregnancy sickness is caused by a surge in hormones (yeah, I did not love the “oh that means your baby is healthy!” comment I got any time I mentioned feeling sick). But it manifests in your body around your digestive tract. So, if you focus on food, do your best to eat, and try to keep levels even, you might be able to beat some of your pregnancy sickness. Or, if you are like me, it at least stops once you’ve had the baby.
I’m sorry you are suffering through morning or pregnancy sickness right now. I really do empathize because I still fully remember how awful it was for me. I had to shift my hours at work, think about food constantly, and definitely see a dentist after each of my kids was born. I had to stop working out and had next to no energy. I know we all know it will be worth it once your bundle of love arrives, but that is a small consolation when you are in the thick of it. I hope one of the above suggestions helps for you.
Leave a comment below to let others know of other remedies you found or how one of the above suggestions worked for you.
