Pregnancy nausea; when to get help

You know you have pregnancy nausea when you wake up one morning in your fourth week of pregnancy and wonder if you can make it to the bathroom or whether you should just be sick over the side of the bed! If this is your first pregnancy, welcome to the world of morning sickness or pregnancy nausea. It is going to be your semi constant companion for the next ten weeks.

You may never throw up, you may always throw up, but you will often feel as though you want to throw up. And that could be morning noon and night. “Morning” sickness is just as much a misnomer as “nine months” of pregnancy. Most pregnancies last 40 weeks, most months have 4 weeks, so you’re actually pregnant for ten months. Humans seem to be the only mammals that experience pregnancy nausea, when you consider the animal kingdom as a whole. Unless other mammals just bear it more stoically and it’s gone unobserved.

Surprisingly, nobody can give a definitive answer for what causes pregnancy nausea, although there are many educated guesses relating to both causes and solutions.

Just to be clear about this – pregnancy nausea when accompanied by severe abdominal pain and cramping, fever, heart palpitations and confusion, is not normal and needs instant medical attention.

There are also rare cases when the normal symptoms of pregnancy nausea become extreme (called hyperemesis gravidarum) and result is severe thirst, dehydration, starvation and weight loss.

Less than one percent of pregnant women fall into this category and it is very serious, requiring hospitalization and drip rehydration and feeding. With pregnancy nausea when to call a doctor depends on whether your symptoms are becoming debilitating and you are finding it difficult to keep food and fluids down most of the day.

Pregnancy nausea affects about 80% of women and most find it worst in their first pregnancies. It also tends to run in families, so ask your mother and female relatives what helped them when they were pregnant.

It may last throughout your pregnancy or return in late pregnancy, but most women feel considerably better by week twelve to fourteen.

In the meantime rest and relax, have small nourishing meals and plenty of fluids and before you know it, you’ll be able to rejoin the rest of the family at mealtimes.