Diet and Health FAQ

Tagged As: When Do You Get Morning Sickness

Question:
This just can't be normal! I am too sick. I force myself to eat - NOTHING is even close to agreeable to eat. I sort of throw my food down my throat and my eyes are burning I want to vomit so badly! The easiest things to eat are the very, very bland, like cream of wheat cereal or plain baked potato. How am I going to be healthy? I am losing weight, I am sure of it. I only got in about 600 calories yesterday. I can be so hungry I am more nauseous and then as soon as I get some food, I feel so repulsed by it I feel like vomiting. It is a totally no-win situation. I have a very limited amount of sick time off at work and I have taken two days already. I don't have enough days to take off to make it through this pregnancy if this sickness continues, but I can not stand to wear most of my clothing because my stomach is so tender, I am dizzy and fatigued as well as nauseous constantly. I am out of breath all the time too. I was in decent shape before I got pregnant. Everyone is starting to notice at work and ask questions. From my observations, management is not very accomodating with pregnant/new moms (four have quit recently because of inflexibility with work schedules and so on). This is stressful, but I need my job so I drag myself in feeling worse than I ever have with a raging flu.

Answer:
At around 14 weeks, I think I am finally getting some relief from the constant nausea. I know how you are feeling!! How far along are you? Usually when you feel sick, you have to force yourself to eat a little, protein if you can. Some things I could get down were: 1/2 peanut butter and all fruit jelly sandwhich, nuts, plain chicken, toast, saltines, saltines with peanut butter. When I felt really bad like gagging I would suck on a slice of lemon (cut them and carry them to work). It cuts the urgent feeling somehow. Lemon slice in water helps as does sparkling water. Sucking on a lemonhead candy or lemon drop helps for those times you need something fast. Try taking pretzels with you. And my doc said Emetrol would be okay so twice I took some. I'm sure it didn't hurt the baby. It is an anti-nausea drug over the counter. You can check with your doc on that. I highly recommend the Sea-Bands (available at the drugstore). They helped me a lot. Also, when you wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, be sure to eat a little something. As others have said, protein is best. Here's some of my favorites: toast w/peanut butter, soft fruit like mangos and peaches, scrambled eggs, soft-boiled egg on toast lightly salted, crackers w/cheese spread, plain white meat chicken chunks, those fruit smoothie drinks w/yogurt and vitamin B-6 added. I also heard someone say that orange juice with a tablespoon of Brewer's Yeast was good because of the vitamin B-6 which is said to help nausea. I also took spoonfuls of coca cola syrup (available at drugstore for nausea) and sucked on ice, kool-aid popsicles and lemon slices as well. Avoid people smoking, frying bacon, strong smells like coffee and bus fumes. Sometimes sniffing familiar mild smells were comforting. I have a pillow filled with lavender that I would lay my head on when I felt ill, it usually made me go to sleep. I still get nauseous when I don't eat (15 wks) but it's NOTHING like it was before, and I've stopped wearing the Sea-Bands finally. If you can't keep ANYTHING down, the doctor may give you some prescription medicine. Oh and skip the prenatal vitamins for now, I found they just made it worse. I reread your letter and forgot to say: don't ever eat TOO much at a time. No matter how good I felt or how hungry I was, if I ate until I was full, it almost always made me heave! Try tiny bites first and work your way up to a small amount of food at a time. So what if it takes you 30 minutes to eat a potato! Plain white rice is good too. On the bright side, I've read numerous places that some doctors say that when you have a lot of morning sickness, you are less likely to miscarry, so I hope that makes you feel a little better.