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Morning Sickness- Everything You Ought To Know With Some Brilliant Tips That Work Against It
If you are looking for all the information related to morning sickness which includes its causes, tests, diagnosis, and complications, or you have been facing morning sickness lately, you should grasp this valuable information.
Morning sickness is usually a common symptom when it comes to pregnancy. It is basically marked by some events like nausea, vomiting, or uneasiness. Despite the name given to it which is “morning sickness”, it can affect you at any stage or any time of the day.
This causes high discomfort as if you have been traveling in a closed car for a day or so. It usually occurs during the first four weeks when you are pregnant. Sometimes, it’s also the first sign that indicated you to have a test of pregnancy.
There are many ways using which you can try to alleviate your mood and get rid of morning sickness and the complications involved in it are extremely rare. Let’s see what causes this to happen in the first place.
Causes Of Morning Sickness
During your pregnancy, there is no particular reason or anyone reason that leads to having morning sickness. The severity of this also varied in different women. The main cause of this type of sickness is an increase in the level of hormones secreted during the first few weeks of pregnancy in women. Another important cause to keep in mind is reduced blood sugar levels. These two factors together contribute to morning sickness on a larger basis.
Some other factors that contribute to worsening this condition include the following:
- Having triplets or twins.
- Emotional stress during the stages
- Excessive fatigue
- Traveling frequently.
Another factor that morning sickness depends upon is your pregnancy type. While in most women it has been seen that during the first pregnancy, they had severe sickness while later on it reduced and became mild.
If you are going through your first pregnancy, you need to follow a lot of things to stay far from excessive sickness.
Complications Involved
Morning sickness causes vomiting and nausea which makes it easy to lose your appetite. Many women also worry that this sickness may harm their babies, but it is common and everyone goes through it. Mild sickness does not have any impact on the baby’s growth and is not at all harmful.
While those women that face morning sickness even after 3 or 4 months of their pregnancy, should visit their doctor or healthcare expert to get everything checked. Also, if you are not gaining any weight during this stage, you need to consult a doctor as it is something that’s rare in pregnant women.
It is usually not very severe that it can hinder the growth of your baby and lead to underdevelopment. It has been seen in some women that they end up losing a lot of weight instead of gaining due to severe vomiting.
Carefully look at the situations ad things given below and if you feel you are experiencing any one of them, make sure you see your healthcare expert immediately.
- Losing weight of 2 pounds or more.
- High fever
- Not being able to keep your food down.
- Small quantities of urine having a dark color
- Very frequent urination
- feeling dizziness or lightheadedness.
- Increase in heartbeat rate
- Severe nausea after the beginning of your second trimester.
- Blood in the vomit
- Headaches frequently
- Pain in abdomen
- Bleeding
When the sickness becomes more than severe, you might even need to be hospitalized. You will be requiring intravenous fluids for rehydrating the body as water loss occurs during vomiting.
Possible Treatments Involved
You may be given some supplements or medications that can help you get rid of nausea and retain fluids and food. Sime important medications that the doctor might precise includes:
- Antihistamines- These medicines help you with nausea and morning sickness.
- Phenothiazine- These medications will help in calling down severe vomiting and nausea together.
- Metoclopramide or Reglan– They are effective to help your stomach move the food forward to your intestine and help you get rid of nausea and vomiting.
- Antacids- These medications will help to keep acid reflux at bay and help in absorbing stomach acids.
Note- These medications may cause some severe side effects and all the medications given above may not suit everyone, so it is strongly recommended that you seek help from your doctor and take medications only after it is prescribed by them.
Some people also look for different ways or alternative ways that help them get rid of morning sickness. If you are not a huge fan of medicines, you may refer to these alternative remedies. But the same thing applies here too, not all the remedies are suitable for you, you have to consult a doctor and then proceed with the ones that work well for you and the baby.
- Taking supplements of vitamin B-6
- Taking prenatal vitamins.
- Having ginger products that include ginger tea, ginger drops, and ginger ale.
- Saltine crackers
- Hypnosis
- Acupuncture.
After consulting with your healthcare expert, you may try any of these. Prenatal vitamins are often prescribed to women during pregnancy as all the nutrients required at that stage do not come from food. Sometimes the food lacks fibers required while sometimes it lacks essential nutrients, so taking prenatal vitamins is also important for the healthy growth of the baby.
Tests For Morning Sickness
Once you visit your doctor, they will note down all the symptoms you tell them that you have been facing for few days to make sure you are safe and your baby’s growth is healthy. Depending upon the type of symptoms you are facing, they will perform certain tests. These include:
Urine Test
This test is done to check if you are dehydrated or not as excessive vomiting will eventually lead to dehydration.
Blood Chemistry test
Your doctor might ask you to go through some blood chemistry tests like:
- CBC or complete blood count (it might lower during pregnancy)
- Comprehensive metabolic panel
- Another test called chem-20 measures the number of electrolytes in your blood.
These tests are performed by doctors and healthcare specialists to test if you are dehydrated or malnourished. During pregnancy, you might not get enough nutrients and vitamins to sustain you as well as your baby together which leads to deficiency of vitamins and in turn result in malnourishment.
These tests will also determine if you are anemic or not.
Ultrasound
Ultrasound is quite common when it comes to running tests during pregnancy. You might have already been through one or two ultrasound tests. These tests are basically performed by doctors to produce an image of how the baby is inside. The doctors will use these images and the sound to keep a check whether the baby is in a healthy state or the development is appropriate.
These were few tests performed, now the question is, how do we prevent morning sickness from occurring.
Some Tips To Deal With Morning Sickness
1. Ditch Work Life
Your body works overtime when you have a baby developing inside. If you some mornings where getting out of bed is provoking nausea or vomiting, you must take a break. Ask for sick leave. Now that there are rules and regulations and some laws made on women’s behalf, you mat take sick leave anytime during pregnancy without losing anything.
After the initial stages, during the 7th week of your pregnancy, you will find that morning sickness starts elevating. You need to stay calm and focus on your physical and mental health at this stage.
2. Sniff A Fresher Scent
A senior dietician and nutritionist at Brigham suggest that morning sickness is often associated with smell. It was seen in a woman facing morning sickness in a hospital. Estrogen hormones in women are also responsible for your sense of smell. If you are not in a state or place of opening widows or take a small walk, you may try sniffing fresh scents. For instance, just carry a bottle having lemon extracts with you or a sprig of rosemary inside your purse.
3. Eat Snacks That Help Fighting Morning Sickness
There are a few snacks that help to fight morning sickness. You can keep dry crackers anytime with you like the slated crackers. You may keep them near the night table so that you can eat them easily while you are going to bed or waking up.
You may eat something every few hours like low-fat yogurt, cheese, and crackers, peanut butter. You can also have ginger tea. If you are craving food having high calories, do not skip them. You may eat small portions of food every few hours. This will help you deal with morning sickness.
4. Stay Hydrated
Another important aspect that needs to be kept in mind. While many people forget and take this thing lightly, you don’t want to stay dehydrated.
We are always advised to drink at least 8 glasses of water per day. It is important that you do not skip your liquids because the more hydrated you are, the more nausea occurs. So having a check on your liquids is important. You cannot drink plenty of water directly and trigger nausea. Try different ways of being hydrated like salty snacks that settle down in your stomach and triggers your body to drink water.
5. Consider Having Your Medications
If you are having a tough time dealing with your pregnancy, you may want to see a doctor as they will figure everything out and suggest you some medications that suit you the best. Many doctors suggest taking vitamins like vitamin B6 at this stage. Do not worry about the medications harming the baby because you will get relief from sickness and you will stay hydrated keeping your baby healthy too.
6. Carry A Survival Kit With You
It does not matter how many times you puke in a day, sometimes you may want to go outside and sickness occurs. Puking in public areas is something many women are concerned about as they feel it’s unhygienic and they do not get a place to clean themselves up causing issues. Although this situation is pretty sticky, you can follow some measures to make it more bearable.
Try to pack a clean top or blouse along with a toothbrush and toothpaste. You may also carry a bottle having mouth wash that may help you freshen up after you puke. Have a small bag and small bottles to store everything. Another smart move is having breath mints. Also, carry your snacks like pretzels and crackers that you can munch anytime on when your stomach starts feeling empty.
7. Wear The Most Comfortable Clothes
Focus on what you wear. Sometimes tight clothes can make you uncomfortable and morning sickness might occur as a reason. Try wearing everything that fits well and is comfortable. You should be able to breathe in whatever you decided to wear, that’s the whole concept here.
8. Adjust Your Screens
You might have a notion that using your mobile phones or computer while having morning sickness can reduce its effect, but it is not completely true. A study suggests that when you surf a computer or tablet or any gadget keeping the brightness maximum or quite high, it may lead to making you more nauseated.
It is suggested that if you wish to surf the internet, try keeping the brightness levels at the lowest or on the levels you can see properly. This will reduce the strain on the eyes. Also, try to take a break from the computers and enjoy other activities that you love doing like playing music or simply lying by keeping your eyes closed. It’s such a relief!
9. Experimenting With Ginger
Getting creative with ginger is great to control morning sickness. Ginger has been known for decades as a great way to soothe your stomach and get rid of many issues.
Try to add a thin slice of ginger or few pieces cut small in tea or hot water. You can also have crystallized ginger candies or gingerbread to entice your stomach and make it feel better. Try using it in your favorite dishes by cutting it into thin slices. If you love ice creams, try microwaving a ginger jam and then our it inside a vanilla ice cream to make it delicious.
10. Try To eat In Portions
When it comes to reducing morning sickness through eating, many women have found that when they eat the whole day in small potions it has been really helpful.
This happens because when the stomach is empty, the acids present inside the stomach find nothing to feed on and they start feeding on the lining resent inside your stomach. This may cause nausea and thus morning sickness to happen.
On the other hand, overeating or eating in large amounts all together can overtax your digestive system leading to nausea. You have to find a way in between these two situations. Keeping the tummy a little bit full throughout the day and night is a great defense against morning sickness. Try to keep few snacks with you every time and everywhere you go in your kit. Take a snack before you go to sleep because it will help in establishing your blood sugar levels throughout the night reducing the chances of morning sickness in all possible ways.
11. Note The Triggers
Have you ever noticed that you have morning sickness at the same time every day? it might be due to some triggering. Maybe your neighbors are cooking the same thing in breakfast every day that causes you to become sick or the smell of a scent that someone uses makes you have nausea every time. Anything can cause morning sickness to elevate.
Once you identify the possible triggers that make you go through nausea and lead to vomiting, you can work on the triggers and remove them.
12. Try Taking Holistic Approaches
You may want to prepare yourself for your pregnancy. You can use acupressure wristbands that work amazing by applying light pressure to a place or spot on your wrist that is related to vomiting and nausea. It might do its work and make your morning sickness a little less brutal than it already is. You just have to believe that it is working for good. Manifestation is important. Those who believe in it might use it.
It will also simply distract you from paying attention to nausea making you feel better. If they do not work and you think your wrist is hurting, remove them instantly. This method is slightly different from other methods mentioned above, and it does not cause any side effects too.
You can also divert your attention by reading some poems and stories on newborn babies. Start learning about your pregnancy weeks and how your baby is developing. You will soon feel the joy of welcoming your baby into this beautiful world.
These were 12 easy and best tips you can always use if you are feeling nauseatic or sick lately.
