When you first find out that you are going to have a baby, you seldom think of morning sickness. Sometime during the happy early weeks of your pregnancy, however, you will remember all you've been told about the pregnancy vomiting and nausea that three-quarters of all pregnant women must cope with, usually during the first trimester of pregnancy. Enduring nausea symptoms is far from easy for most women and the fact that you are not the only mother-to-be who is suffering doesn't make it any easier. Nevertheless, there are several simple home remedies that can effectively ward off nausea and other symptoms. Prescription medications are also available.You can expect to experience symptoms about three or four weeks into your pregnancy. Nausea and the bouts of vomiting that typically accompany it will soon prompt you to search for safe, natural cures to help you cope. Although pregnancy vomiting and nausea are exhausting, there is a positive aspect to morning sickness. Compared to women who do not experience these symptoms, expecting mothers who have this condition are at much lower risk of miscarriage and their pregnancies rarely end up in stillbirths.
Several options are available that can help you to cope with morning sickness. The first is an age-old remedy - ginger. This spice root has helped countless pregnant women to go through the first months of their pregnancies. Using ginger to ward off pregnancy vomiting and nausea is simple. Ginger capsules, ginger cookies and ginger candies are available on the market, but most women use ginger in beverage form (ginger ale or ginger tea) and sip it all day long. The effectiveness of this home cure has been demonstrated in studies that compared its results to those obtained using a placebo. Ginger popsicles, regularly used by chemotherapy patients to fight nausea, can also be used to treat nausea. Women all over the world have used ginger to cope with nausea and morning sickness, with no demonstrable negative side effects. Ginger is approved of by doctors and they often recommend it first as a remedy for difficult pregnancy vomiting and nausea problems.
Many pregnancy healthcare providers also advise that you introduce a few basic changes in your eating habits to offset the imbalance of your system. For example, increasing the carbohydrates you eat (dry toast, pasta and crackers) will help alleviate pregnancy vomiting and nausea. Your doctor may explain that vitamin B supplements also ward off many of the signs of morning sickness. Eating lots of carbohydrate-rich foods and taking vitamin B is a natural remedy that is safe for you to use while you are pregnant.
New to this part of the world, acupressure has recently been shown to be an effective remedy for nausea. To use this therapy, purchase one of the special wristbands that stimulate specific points in the wrist area to control pregnancy vomiting and nausea. Acupressure remedies are popular with people who are prone to sea sickness and are very often used by people who travel on boats. If other home remedies don't seem to relieve your symptoms, acupressure may well be the answer to your problems. This nausea treatment is 100% natural, approved of by the medical profession and cannot harm you or your baby.
Your symptoms may be severe and the natural cures described above may not provide the relief you need. In this case you should talk to your doctor about your problems. He or she may determine that your pregnancy vomiting and nausea symptoms warrant prescribing medication. While this option is available, physicians generally only use it after all other options have been exhausted.
By Sue Summerland
