Morning Sickness

Dealing with morning sickness

While pregnancy is a wonderful and magical time, there’s also a fair amount of mess that goes along with the magic.

Morning sickness is one of the most well known and often discussed negative side effects of a pregnancy. In many cases, morning sickness is the messenger that allows women to find out they’re pregnant.

Morning sickness  is a condition that impacts about half of all pregnant women, and is perhaps one of the more uncomfortable aspects of pregnancy. Morning sickness usually takes place in the early hours of the day (hence the name) and tapers off as the day progresses. Morning sickness is usually characterized by mild to severe nausea and vomiting.

Morning sickness usually begins at about the sixth week of pregnancy and lasts until about the twelfth week. No one is quite sure what causes morning sickness, but most doctors believe that it has its root in a variety of factors. Some of the leading theories include:

• An increase in the amount of estrogen. When women become pregnant their production of estrogen can increase by 100 times the normal rate of production. To be sure, there’s no known difference in estrogen levels between women who experience morning sickness and those who do not.
• When women become pregnant, their sense of smell greatly improves. Because their sense of smell is greater, they’re better able to detect foul odors and their sensitivity to them thus increases, which may lead to them becoming more likely to suffer from nausea.
• When women become pregnant their levels of progesterone increase. This increase in progesterone allows the muscles in the uterus to relax, and thus prevents premature birth, but this may also relax pregnant women’s stomach and intestines, thus leading to an excess of stomach acids and gastroesophegal reflux, thus causing nausea and vomiting.
• Morning sickness may also be an evolutionary safeguard that prevents women from eating less healthy foods during pregnancy. Because women suffering from morning sickness have more sensitive stomachs, they’re forced to eat lighter, healthier fare and abstain from unhealthy, greasy foods and substances like alcohol.

Whatever the cause, morning sickness can be quite unpleasant for many pregnant women. In some cases, it can lead to more severe health problems. In a rare number of pregnancies, morning sickness can lead to vomiting severe enough to cause weight loss, dehydration, hypokalemia and alkalosis. This is known as hyperemesis gravidarum and happens in about one percent of all pregnancies. Hyperemesis gravidarum can cause many health complications for a pregnant woman, and may cause some later-in-life health issues for their unborn children.

There are a wide variety of home and medical remedies to morning sickness that can alleviate some of the discomfort this condition causes pregnant women.

Home remedies for morning sickness include:

• Rest. Your body’s going through an exhausting period of change. Sufficient bed rest could help to settle your stomach and make you less likely to become ill.
• Keep snacks by your bedside. Snacking at night has been found to help settle the stomach, and thus keep you from feeling ill when you wake up in the morning.
• Vitamin B6 has been found to be useful in preventing nausea and vomiting in pregnant women.
• Eating or sniffing lemon slices. Ginger and ginger ale has also been found to help prevent nausea and vomiting.

Another home remedy involves avoiding fried, fatty foods. Because of your increased sense of smell, you may find the odor of fried chicken or greasy hamburgers to be nauseating. By just avoiding these foods, you may reduce your chance of being ill.

If home remedies don’t suffice, doctors are able to proscribe a number of anti-nausea medications for morning sickness. The leading anti-nausea medication prescribed for morning sickness is Zofran, a drug that blocks chemical interactions in the body that can cause nausea and vomiting. Other medications include promethazine metoclopramide, and prochlorperazine.

If you suffer from severe morning sickness, take the time to mention it to your doctor. There’s no need to suffer. You should especially seek medical attention if your morning sickness is causing you to become dehydrated or to lose weight. In extremely rare cases, women who are unable to keep any food down must be fed through intravenous methods in order to preserve their health and that of their unborn child.

Despite all the downsides to morning sickness, there may be a silver lining, however. The upside of morning sickness (yes, there is one) is that, according to some studies, women who suffer from morning sickness are less likely to miscarry than women not afflicted with it.

Morning sickness can definitely make pregnancy less enjoyable, but if you’re able to take advantage of the many home remedies or medical alternatives available to alleviate this problem it can be made into a minor annoyance instead of a major inconvenience.