morning sickness remedies

duckie · Mar 25, 2003

One of the girls at work that is pregnant said her MD told her to eat a raw potato before getting out of bed. She swears it works, don't know first hand. Good luck to your friend.

KP RN · Mar 25, 2003

A bowl of popcorn on the nightstand--eat some before getting out of bed every morning.

This remedy never worked for me, though. The only thing I could keep down were Burger King's chicken sandwiches with extra mayo....

CountrifiedRN · Mar 25, 2003

A friend of mine had terrible morning sickness, and her doc told her to eat small frequent meals, no matter how nauseous she felt. A small meal could be a few crackers, a half sandwich, piece of fruit. He said that keeping something in her stomach should help, that when it gets empty it causes more nausea. She said it did work, she still felt sick at times, but not as bad as when she wasn't eating at all.

Burnt Out, ASN, RN · Mar 25, 2003

I suffered from hyperemesis in my pregnancy and some things that helped me were (besides MD prescribed Phenergan and Zofran:p ):

1. Keeping my mouth from getting dry-sugarless gum, hard candy(I liked lemon drops)

2. Eating dry carbs before getting out of bed. I would eat pretzels and Triscuits

3. GINGER ALE

4. My Ob told me to eat small frequent meals too.....at least 6 if not more.....

5. If I was only slightly queasy, I would eat a bowl of Rice Krispies with peaches.....that was me....but it did seem to help when I didn't want anything to eat at all

6. I would do alot of cold foods-popscicles, applesauce, Jello, fruit (except oranges-couldn't handle the acidity for while)yogurt. Also bananas. The only thing hot that I liked was a baked potato.

Another thing that I read was to eat solid foods at one "meal" and have liquids at the next-liquids tend to fill you up faster, making you more nauseous.

Hope these help....sorry so long...... :imbar :uhoh21:

P_RN, ADN, RN · Mar 25, 2003

Unsweetened hot-tea helped me.

webbiedebbie · Mar 25, 2003

My OB suggested Vitamin B6. She should also talk with her doctor. If it is bad enough, phenergan suppositories can be ordered.

emily_mom · Mar 25, 2003

Suppositories??? I think I'd rather puke....

I just do the crackers (love Triscuit) and deal with it. I was sick my entire last pregnancy, so even if I'm only sick for half this time....I'll be happy.

mark_LD_RN · Mar 25, 2003

vitamin b-6,small frequent meals,mild ,light non-greay foods. and or speak with doc about PO reglan

RN2B2005 · Mar 25, 2003

Morning sickness my orifice. I had the 4:30a-3:00p and 7:00p-2:00a sickness; nausea, queasiness, and actual projectile vomiting. I tried Sea-Bands, ginger, lemon drops, tea, the raw potato thing, and various other "remedies".

Some made a slight dent, but none made me 100% better.

The only thing that made a difference was B-6. It was extremely effective. I took it in a combination tablet, sold as a prescription in Canada, called Diclectin. Diclectin has a time-release mixture of doxylamine succinate (the antihistamine in Unisom SleepTabs, sold OTC in the US) and vitamin B-6.

Since Diclectin (or Bendectin) is not sold in the U.S. (even though it was proven safe by the FDA, our litigious tendencies caused the manufacturer to pull it off the market in 1983), your coworker will have to either get a script from her doctor, drive to Canada and have a Canadian physician rewrite it (not as difficult as it sounds), or she can take the script to a compounding pharmacy and have them fill it. Alternatively, she could just buy some Unisom SleepTabs, some B-6, and talk to a knowledgeable practitioner about how to take them in combination.

Good luck.

Anaclaire · Mar 25, 2003

These are all excellent suggestions!!

When I worked with antepartum moms admitted for hyperemesis the doctors would be sure to have the pharmacy add vitamin B-6 (pyridoxine) to their IV fluids. It made all the difference for most all of these moms. The physicians would get together with nutritionists to make up IV bags containing all kinds of nutrients needed specifically for each patient. These women were often less than 5 months pregnant but had been unable to drink fluids or eat. The dehydration would cause terrible problems all around for them as well as their unborn babies.

The small frequent meals, eating only drier foods at one meal and then liquid foods at the next, or vice-versa, seemed to help a lot too. Saltines or other bland crackers full of starch before rising was useful as was hot peppermint tea and ginger tea. Ginger ale and 7-up/Sprite worked well for many moms, sipping it slowly. Avoiding strong smelling perfumes and foods, etc. was very important as was rest and relaxation.

Another old-fashioned yet helpful trick is to boil some long grain rice in a pot with some water in order to get the starch to leach out of the rice. Let it boil until you see a nice "broth" of starch and then eat this broth with a spoon like a soup. The broth shouldn't be too thin... more like a cream-based soup. I'd imagine this works along the same lines of the potato and crackers. I think the warmth of the broth is helpful for some people too. It just tastes like rice soup.

Every person is differnt. Try everything to see what works for you.

Thankfully as the pregnancy continues and the hormones begin to balance, the more common morning sickness that occurs during the first 3 to 4 months tends to subside. You can most likely blame the hormones for the morning sickness, but then you must thank them in the next breath since they are necessary for keeping the pregnancy ongoing.

I hope your friend's morning sickness subsides soon and she delivers a healthy baby with no labor difficulties!

Warmly,

Anaclaire

Paprikat · Mar 25, 2003

My friend swore by somehing called "seabands." You wear them around your wrists. People use them for motion sickness and on boats.