The Morning Sickness Survival Guide

Not exactly morn­ing glory

Gave birth before? Then you are most likely in this “exclu­sive” group. The offi­cial votes are in…Most preg­nant women WILL suf­fer from morn­ing sick­ness dur­ing their first trimester of their preg­nancy. I don’t know how preg­nant men avoid it, but it goes hand in hand with bring­ing life into the world for us ladies.

For the REAL unlucky ones, morn­ing sick­ness may even last up to 12 weeks. Since some women can be affected more than oth­ers with dif­fer­ent lev­els of symp­toms, it is dif­fi­cult to sug­gest one mir­a­cle cure for all of morn­ing sick­ness. How­ever, there are many com­mon tips that you can keep in a list at the side of your bed in case you are one of the cursed women that get hit hard with this annoy­ing morn­ing ritual.

How sweet are you in the morn­ing?
There is a the­ory that your morn­ing sick­ness occurs when you wake up because that is the time when your blood sugar level is at it’s lowest.

• So keep some sweet candy, choco­late (hmmm!) or sweet juice by your bedside.
• A health­ier alter­na­tive is to keep a high pro­tein snack at bed­side and then grab a lit­tle bite of it each time you wake up to go to the bath­room in the mid­dle of the night. It just might be enough to make a difference!
• If all else fails, dip­ping your hand into the sugar bowl and devour­ing a palm-full of raw sugar like a wild hun­gry beast prob­a­bly can’t hurt. Although it may force your hus­band to take some safety pre­cau­tions of his own.
• NOTE: If you have ges­ta­tional dia­betes dur­ing your preg­nancy, please con­sult your doc­tor before fol­low­ing these tips.

Blame it on the water
Some women com­plain that drink­ing water actu­ally makes things worse when they suf­fer from morn­ing sick­ness. The catch 22 of it all is that it’s extremely cru­cial to stay prop­erly hydrated dur­ing preg­nancy, but there are some alter­na­tives that might help your body and your soul find a com­pro­mise and stop bickering.

• Try hav­ing fruit smooth­ies made with crushed ice.
• Try some car­bon­ated water with small amounts of fruit flavoring.
• Drink­ing ICE COLD water with lemon has been said to make a sig­nif­i­cant difference.
• A com­mon alter­na­tive to ICE COLD water is a sooth­ing hot cup of tea.
  • Mint tea in par­tic­u­lar can really help set­tle down some of that tur­moil inside you.
• Try them all if you wish and see which works best.
• NOTE: Make sure your tea is CAFFEINE FREE.

A smelly sit­u­a­tion
Your nose is on high alert in the early stages of preg­nancy. Your sense of smell acts like it’s on steroids and all scents and odors (espe­cially the really bad ones) can be height­ened, some­times to an extreme level.

• Avoid nasty smells that can cause nausea.
  • For some women, that alone can stop that severe or even reg­u­lar morn­ing sickness.
• Some­times just the kitchen trash, or even morn­ing breath can be enough to trig­ger morn­ing sickness.
  • So make an effort to make sure all trash is taken out before you go to bed.
  • Keep­ing some mouth­wash for your­self and your hus­band with a spit-bucket can also make a difference.

Morn­ing sick­ness won’t last for­ever, trust me. But you want to make sure that while you are going through it, you’re as com­fort­able as can be.