Morning sickness caused by certain foods?
Categories: Pregnancy & birth, Health & safety
When it comes to "morning sickness" and pregnancy, there are many different camps. There are the women who never feel sick, some that feel nauseous, some that vomit but end around 12 weeks and then, the rest of us.Who are we? We are the sufferers of hyperemesis, which is basically non-stop, round-the-clock vomiting for part or all of a pregnancy. Having hyperemesis or extreme morning sickness, is horrible. I've ended up in the emergency room getting IV fluids because I just couldn't stop throwing up. I've lost the weight during pregnancy. I have cried and cried into the toilet begging for my body to just stop it.
So, when I see this article that seems to hint that what you eat causes your morning sickness, you can guess that I'd be a little testy. (It also mentions that morning sickness can help certain chemicals from affecting the baby, which is a good thing.)
I'll be the first person to tell you that it didn't matter what I ate or didn't eat: I threw up. How could they explain the vomiting of water? Water isn't a sweet!
I think the hardest part of having hyperemesis or morning sickness is that some people believe that positive thinking will cause them not to get it. So, when someone says that, I can't help but wonder if they think that I actually enjoyed throwing up in a communal bathroom at work. Because, just for the record, I didn't.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Laura 7-13-2006 @ 11:17AM
As a person who has had Hyperemesis with both pregnancies (I am 7 weeks now and I have already been to the hospital once for IVs and am on both Zofran AND Phenergan and still can't get any relief) I hate the morning sickness is natural but kind of also your fault articles. I can barely keep down weak tea much less any other kinds of foods. There is enough fear and worry with hyperemesis and to have articles like this one really bother me. I wish that I could have the luxury of worrying about what I can and can't eat when I am pregnant- I am lucky if I can keep down anything.
THe best resources for hyperemesis that I have found are this website:
www.helpher.org
and the book Managing Morning Sickness by Miriam Erick.
I wish they could find some way to prevent hyperemesis because it is so disabling and frustrating. I literally sob with my head in the toilet because I don't have the energy to go back to bed after vomiting. My parents have had to take care of my son for the past week because I can't do it and my husband is trying to take care of me. It is so awful when something like hyperemesis spoils what is supposed to be such a happy time.
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Marcia 7-13-2006 @ 11:19AM
"morning sickness is positively correlated with the intake of sugars and sweeteners, stimulants such as caffeine, vegetables, meats, milk and eggs"
Is that saying that vegetables can CAUSE morning sickness? I really don't believe that. I am one of those priveledged ones that threw up 3-4 times a day for around 4 months so I know how exhausting and frustrating it was, and like Rachel, it didn't matter WHAT I ate it was coming back up within the next hour or two. I'm currently at 29 weeks and I still get sick once in a while. I don't really think they can say for certain what foods cause morning sickness. Everyone is different. That's just like the smells, the smell of saurkraut turns my stomach in seconds which it never did before but a good friend of mine ate it all the time during her pregnancy without a problem.
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karrie 7-13-2006 @ 11:42AM
Everything made me throw up. Like you, it did not matter what I ate. One day a piece of whole grain toast would settle my stomach, the next day just thinking the word "toast" would make me gack all over my shoes. Smells made me violently ill. Especially the hotdogs and cleaning fluid scent of Target. Or my husband's deoderant.
There are things that merely thinking about 2 years later, make me feel ill.
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Phc 7-13-2006 @ 12:28PM
I was the same way. Threw up everything, including water, in the ER for an IV, etc.
The only thing that got me through was Anzemet (Laura, go look into it!). I still felt nauseous during the first trimester, but at least I wasn't throwing up 10 times per day.
And during trimesters two and three, I wasn't even nauseous if I took it. If I stopped, I would get sick again. But as long as I was on it, I was fine.
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cas 7-13-2006 @ 1:45PM
Statistics 101 says: correlation does not equal causation. Not only that, if you were to take the correlation statement and try to apply some opposite logic, then you could make a definitive list of foods you could eat that would not make you feel sick...you know, all the other things in the world that don't have sugars/sweetners, aren't vegetables/meat/milk/eggs, and don't have caffeine.
So I guess that leaves you with grains, tofu, any dairy product that is not milk, and nuts.
From personal experience, I can tell you this much: the throwing up of rice was by far the worst of the throwing up I did with Nell.
So since I threw up one time after I ate rice, then I can positively correlate it to morning sickness?
So, sorry girls...that means grains are out.
Good luck with the nuts, tofu and non-milk dairy products.
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suburban misfit 7-13-2006 @ 3:07PM
I'm one of the "rest of us", too. My hyperemisis didn't subside until after I'd delivered both of my children. I even threw up while pushing with the first. It was horrible, horrible, horrible. At one point, I couldn't even ice chips for crying out loud. No medications worked, nothing worked. I ended up just having to eat through my feelings of nausea and hope that some of the nutrients would stay even when I threw up. I couldn't take prenatal vitamins, either. I can't even remember how many times I was in the hospital.
I still can't believe, sometimes, that we had a second child! I figured it couldn't get any worse than the first pregnancy. Boy, was I wrong....
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Neurotic Mom 7-13-2006 @ 3:10PM
Heh. I had all-day nausea in the first trimester with both of my pregnancies, and often the only things that I could tolerate were pepperoni pizza, beef tacos and Arby's roast beef sandwiches.
Also, Unisom is a wonder drug for morning sickness. I wrote about it here: http://www.mlive.com/weblogs/neuroticmom/index.ssf?/mtlogs/mlive_mom/archives/2006_02.html#111651
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paige 7-13-2006 @ 4:29PM
See, it's the comments like Neurotic Mom's that get me riled. Unisom may be a wonder drug for typical morning sickness that only lasts a few weeks, but it does nothing for hyperemesis. Nothing. And if those of us who *had* it could have actually eaten anything, let alone pizza, tacos and roast beef sandwiches, maybe we wouldn'tve had to have been hospitalized to get our nutrients through an IV. Maybe some of us wouldn't have miscarried because our bodies shut down.
I hate that so many people think that regular morning sickness, even if it lasts throughout the pregnancy, is the same as hyperemesis. It's not.
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Mrs. Coulter 7-13-2006 @ 4:38PM
Let me chime in with the "correlation is not causation". As a privileged member of the "water made me throw up club", I share your frustration with these kinds of articles, since people may read them and think that nausea is *caused* by the foods, as opposed to being associated with the foods (i.e., you can't eat them because they make you barf).
That said, some foods were definitely worse than others. With the fabulous aid of Zofran, I was able to eat fresh fruit (apples, but no peel, because that made me throw up), cut fruit (very very expensive in wintertime!), dry Cheerios (god I hate the fact that my toddler *loves* them--I never want to see another Cheerio in my life), plain frozen waffles (no butter, no syrup), and french fries. Sugar was bad, eggs and dairy were bad (the dairy aversion lasted until the third trimester--how frustrating is it to crave a glass of milk and then throw up when you give in?), all meat was bad (except occasionally very small amounts of white meat chicken). Tea was OK, coffee totally out. For a while, Doritos were one of my staple foods (no idea why they went down and (mostly) stayed down). I was still down 20lbs from my pre-pregnancy weight at 22 weeks, though. I gained it all back and then some by my due date, (un)fortunately.
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Laura 7-13-2006 @ 4:46PM
The Unisom/B6 combo worked for about- oh 5 minutes with me before the hyperemesis hit full on. Right now all I can live on is plain bagels with peanut butter. I am so sick of that meal I could die, but anything else comes right back up. I wanted 3 kids but after this baby is born (the second) either my DH or I are getting fixed. I can't do this again- it is just too horrible.
God, I wish all I had to rely on was Unisom. It sure would save the $100 co-pay on Zofran every other week.
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spages 7-13-2006 @ 8:40PM
We conceived after 4 years, multiple rounds of clomid, and thousands of $$. I was insementated on August 12, 2004 and started throwing up on August 29, 2004. I threw up 20-30 times a day, my record: 33 in one 24 hour period. I had a pic line permanently installed on my right arm to give myself IV fluids for the entire remainer of my pregnancy. Home health care visited me four times a week to change my dressings.
I used to lie on the bathroom floor wondering why we ever wanted to get pregnant and praying for miscarriage. I could not stop throwing up and thinking "positive" would not have changed it.
I lost 26 lbs before our son was born and I threw up four times the last hour of my pregnancy.
Fourteen months later, he is the best thing that has ever happened to us. I love him so much more than I ever thought I would, or could.
Laura (first post) you are so brave. I desparately want another, but just thinking about getting pregnant has me running to the bathroom, head poised over the toilet.
It IS debilitating. How can I be so selfish and put my son and my husband thru 9 months of hell? How can I be certain I won't go insane in the process? I feel guilty even considering such a selfish thing: having another baby? I just get so jealous when the "rest" of humanity is excited about getting preganant.
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Neurotic Mom 7-13-2006 @ 9:21PM
Paige,
I'm sorry to hear about your miscarriage. I certainly didn't mean to offend you or anyone else. But please note that I didn't say Unisom is a wonder drug for hyperemesis. I said it was a wonder drug for morning sickness.
Also, the article is referring to typical morning sickness, not hyperemesis.
My point was that in my case, I craved exactly the things that, according to the study, I should have been revolted by.
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Chuck 8-28-2006 @ 10:08PM
I'm a man and I understand morning sickness first hand.I had surgery on a pituitary tumor when I was 40 yr old. After I'd been home 2 weeks post op, I suddenly got morning sickness. I thought it was the worst flu of my life. After 2 weeks I saw an Endocrinologist. He immediately gave me a shot of testosterone which cured me instantly. He explained, during pregnancy, hormones are upset causing nasuea. I was producing ZERO testosterone so I was nauseaous until about 4pm. Then it started over tomorrow. I NEVER, ever forget my shot every 14 days. Men snicker at morning sickness. Not me. It's NOT funny!
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