Dealing with Morning Sickness

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Recognizing the symptoms of morning sickness:

Suddenly, you realize the smell of food makes you nauseated.  You feel like you are going to regurgitate your last meal.  Even the sight, or thought of food, can make you ill.  Initially, you might not realize that your symptoms are related to pregnancy.  You may think that you have food poisoning or a stomach bug.  Especially if you haven’t missed a period yet, pregnancy may be the furthest thing from your mind.  If you are suffering from symptoms, and you think you might be dealing with morning sickness, you should take a pregnancy test just to be sure.

Preparing meals for others can be torture as every odor causes your stomach to churn when you are dealing with morning sickness.  You may still feel hungry.  When you do eat, you feel nauseated, listless, and sweaty.  Thinking about the food lying in your stomach makes it worse.  Women may find some relief by eating crackers to soak up excess acid and liquid in the stomach. 

Morning sickness usually strikes when you first wake up, but it can definitely affect you at other times of the day.   Unfortunately, many pregnant women find themselves dealing with morning sickness, especially during the first trimester of their pregnancy.  There are things a woman can do to make the situation more tolerable, although you may be disappointed to find that nothing completely eradicates it.

The first thing that you should do is speak with your doctor to ensure that the feelings you are having are normal and that nothing is out of the ordinary.   Your doctor may have suggestions on alleviate your symptoms and dealing with morning sickness.

If you only experience nausea when you first wake up in the morning, rather than all day long, you may want to set your alarm clock earlier.  By getting up earlier, you will have more time to prepare for your day especially if you are still working.  If you are lucky, your morning symptoms will have abated by the time you get to work.

Rely on friends and family members to do the cooking when you are dealing with morning sickness.  Your partner, or husband, can take over the cooking duties while you are feeling ill.  He can order takeout, or pick up pizza—anything to keep you out of the kitchen.

Take lots of time to rest.  If you are exhausted, morning sickness will be even more intolerable.  Make sure you get plenty of sleep.  Whenever you feel nauseated or dizzy, stop whatever you are doing and take a break.  Don’t worry about lint on the carpet, or dishes piling up in the sink, it is more important for you to take care of yourself.

There are many products on the market for women who are dealing with morning sickness.  You can buy everything from ginger pops, to herbal remedies, to barf bags.  There are many excellent sources of information on the internet that can help you.