MORNING SICKNESS DURING PREGNANCY

Nausea Gravidarum, pregnancy sickness...or whatever we want to call it affects around 80% of pregnant women and I don't know about you, but I found it a complete pain in the butt!

Unless you really can't keep any fluids or food down and are losing weight or dehydrated, morning sickness during pregnancy poses no risk to you or your baby. Nevertheless it is wretched isn't it?

I was blessed with a rather fine vintage of morning sickness and whilst breathing through the nausea paid little attention to the available [from any good supermarket] treatments. Are they really just old wives tales? Does anything actually get rid of morning sickness or are we just lessening the symptoms rather than attacking the root cause. Who the heck knows and when you're wandering around the house feeling as if you want to throw up, who actually cares!

I remember vividly sitting through university lectures feeling greener than a Birds Eye pea! I worked part time as a volunteer in the Oxfam shop in Stirling and used to serve customers with one hand over my mouth, fearing that if I let go something awful would come out. It didn't thank goodness. I just always thought it would!

I was probably a textbook case. Morning sickness for me would start in the morning and ease off about 1pm. To my delight it also ended around the 12 week period so my Oxfam shifts and university lectures became far more enjoyable. My mum on the other hand had morning sickness that lasted morning, noon and night. I think I got off lightly!

In amongst all of the recommended treatments [bar the prescription drugs for very severe cases] I am officially putting any relief I got down to the ginger biscuits I used to line up on my bedside table. If I was feeling particularly frivolous I would throw a dry cracker onto the pile! My biscuits and crackers looked very much at home alongside the industrial size bottle of Gaviscon that I used to swig quite happily for the horrendous heartburn, which disappeared as soon as my daughter was born! Who said pregnancy wasn't sexy...

As if you didn't know...some other 'treatments' for morning sickness:

• Smelling a freshly cut lemon
• Avoiding an empty stomach
• Satisfy your food cravings and aversions [a little bit of what you fancy unless it's on the banned food list...]
• Eat little and often
• Eat fruit and veg with a high water content, such as tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, grapefruit, strawberries, lettuce, spinach, cucumber, courgettes, grapes, etc...
• Eat cabbage [not sure why this is seperate!]
• Embark on the BRAT diet - bananas, rice, apple sauce, toast and tea. [On the same plate?!]
• Ginger, in its various guises - capsules, tea, preserved, biscuits
• Eat dry crackers in the morning
• Drink liquids 30-45 minutes after eating solid food [Did my one bottle of Guiness Original count?!]

I am sure there are many many more and I would love to hear your morning sickness stories, no matter how graphic!