Morning sickness: how to cope
Many women experience nausea (and sometimes vomiting) in early pregnancy. While this is called morning sickness, the symptoms can actually occur at any time of the day or night.
Here are some tips that may help you cope with morning sickness.
- Try to get plenty of rest.
- Eat small, frequent meals during the day so that your stomach is never too full or empty.
- Try eating some dry crackers before getting out of bed in the morning to reduce nausea first thing.
- Some women find that eating foods high in carbohydrates (e.g. potatoes, white rice, toast) and dry, salty crackers help relieve morning sickness.
- Avoid any foods that seem to aggravate your nausea (common culprits include rich, acidic, spicy and fatty foods). It’s also not uncommon for the smell of some foods to trigger nausea.
- Try to drink fluids between meals, rather than when you are eating. Sipping throughout the day often works best.
- If water or other liquids are upsetting your stomach, try sucking on ice cubes or flavoured ice blocks.
- Ginger has been shown to help relieve nausea in some women. Ginger ale, gingersnaps, or simply grating some fresh ginger into a mug of hot water may help.
- Vitamin B6 supplements have been shown to reduce nausea, but check with your doctor before taking any vitamin supplements during pregnancy.
- Acupressure wrist bands, which can also be used to combat motion sickness, may help relieve morning sickness in some women. The band stimulates an acupressure point on the inside of your wrist, which can improve nausea.
- You may also want to try acupuncture — ask your doctor if they are able to recommend an acupuncturist trained to work with pregnant women.
If these tips fail to help, or if you have severe nausea and vomiting, talk to your doctor about other treatments that are available. And remember, for most women morning sickness resolves by week 12-14 of pregnancy.
Last Reviewed: 07 March 2009
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