Natural therapies for morning sickness

[aussiemidwife]

Nausea and vomiting can be debilitating in early pregnancy (and occasionally for the whole pregnancy). With my three pregnancies my first I experienced only slight nausea, the second significant nausea (but it was bearable) with my third I could hardly get off the lounge and found it very difficult to work. I tried lots of things and found taking ginger and Vitamin B6 helpful. I also used seasickness bands - which worked but became painful after a while. Brooke Canning has written an article on acupuncture and morning sickness - acupuncture has been found by research to be one of the most helpful natural therapies for morning sickness. What strategies have you used to successful beat morning sickness? I'd love to read your experiences.

[Nerrida]

I was the same for my 3 pregnancies but I found with the last 2 that eating just a couple of kettle chips each morning really helped....not exactly sure why but I presume it is something to do with carbohydrates???

I was also given some homeopathic drops - one lot by a herbalist. They had wild yam in them and made me worse. Another lot given to me by a Naturopath/Nutritionist did not have Wild yam and they worked a treat! I was able to travel on holidays after that, they made such a difference.

[Fi]

I had heard about the benefits of ginger for morning sickness and so tried in various ways (cooked, juiced with other vegies, biscuits etc) but the only one that worked for me was ginger beer - I'm thinking the carbonation as well as the ginger is part of how it worked! So I would drink half a glass of ginger beer and eat a cheese sandwich first thing in the morning and it definitely helped!

[ljmarsden]

Ginger worked for me too! I tried it in every form available!

[leonie]

I drank apple juice and ate apples and grapes for my morning sickness as sometimes they were the only things I could keep down

[aussiemidwife]

Hi Leonie - I hadn't heard anyone mentioning apple juice or eating apples or grapes for morning sickness. The juice would certainly help with keeping well hydrated. Apples and grapes are stomach friendly foods and provide carbohydrates - all of which may help. Thanks for your suggestions.

[mom2many]

I was one of the lucky ones who rarely experienced morning sickness, ginger worked great for the few times I did have nausea. I also tried to enjoy several small meals a day, rather than three large ones. I've always heard that helps.

[aussiemidwife]

PBBs online shop sells a few remedies to help with morning sickness. The PSI bands are a new stylish way to help reduce nausea and vomiting (and supported by research as a method that helps).

[Kestrel]

I found that if I didn't eat enough protein and fats I got worse morning sickness. I found that I needed to eat small meals quite frequently, and not to binge on fruit or other sweet things as it would give me an even worse wave of morning (it was more like "all-day"!) sickness straight after. I was making a really plain rye bread at the time which I would toast until quite dry, then spread with a fair bit of butter and a tiny scraping of Vegemite - and for whatever reason, this often helped with my nausea, making it go away for a while.

There's also the homoepathic remedy Nux Vomica which I intend to try next time; I didn't know about it with my first pregnancy, but I've heard from several friends that it's very effective.

Eating something with complex carbohydrates in the morning before even sitting up helped a lot. For instance, the above toast and Vegemite thing, made by my hubby before he left for work, or even a low-sugar muesli bar next to my bed to munch on before I got upright worked wonders in keeping the nausea in check once rising.

[5Homebirths4Kate]

I experienced morning sickness (a.k.a. all day sickness) with all 5 of my pregnancies. I had it for 5 months with my first child, about 4 months with my second, can't remember how long with my 3rd and 4th children, but about 7 months with my last.

I tried everything mentioned above and different things seemed to help with each pregnancy.

My nutritionist told me that when the liver is congested, morning sickness is much more likely (makes sense). With my first baby, something that seemed to help was squeezing half of a fresh lemon into water and slowly sipping it. (Lemon supports liver function.)

With my 4th baby, eating a banana before rising in the morning helped.

I used something similar to the Psi Bands with the second pregnancy and that helped.

With the 4th pregnancy I found that vitamin B injections really helped (hurray!) but they didn't help with the 5th pregnancy. I tried acupuncture (she just placed something in my ear) and that didn't help. I tried ginger tincture and that didn't help. I found that if I was able to keep something down, just having something on my stomach helped. Sucking on hard candies helped with one of my pregnancies. One of my friends said that just putting a piece of meat in her mouth (and eating it) would keep her from vomiting.

In general, it was different for each and every one of my pregnancies and I found I just had to keep searching for new things to try. I've heard that if you're having a hard time keeping things down, you can try making ice cubes out of juice, and then crushing them or making a "snow cone" out of them and letting yourself suck on that. You'll get some nutrients to help keep your blood sugar up and you'll be eating/drinking it slowly. One mom who had severe nausea "lived" on juiced "snow cones" and ice chips when nothing else would stay down.

[momikatie]

My morning sickness lasted for 5 months when I was still pregnant. Some people told me that maybe I was having a baby boy because usually if you have a bay girl you will experience little to none at all morning sickness. The remedies that I did which worked for me was to just sit down, tried to prop my legs up and relax. I tried not doing too much. Lying down in bed and just closing my eyes worked for me too. Avoiding caffeine and chocolates, peanuts which could give you migraine/ headache too. Eating small frequent feedings instead of heavy meals.

[Pregnancy Massage]

In my pregnancies with 15 years between them I was nauseous throughout the nine months, yes ginger bear and ginger travel sickness tablets took the edge off.
Now in my clinic I see more women experiencing quite intense nausea and have been advising them to hold Pericardium 6 (PC6) which is an acupressure point held on the inside of the wrist.this needs to be held for 10 minutes up to 4 times a day. My pregnant clients are finding this beneficial.