What are the best tips and strategies for preventing and treating nausea and vomiting in pregnancy?

Is it normal to feel nausea all day in the first trimester? The answer is a resounding Yes! Is there anything that can be done? That answer is also a resounding Yes! What about the second trimester? Or the third?

Nausea and vomiting are so common during pregnancy, that up to 80 percent of pregnant women reporting nausea and up to 50 percent of women in pregnancy report vomiting.

The term "morning sickness" is often wrongly ascribed to nausea and vomiting of pregnancy as women will find that it comes and goes and does not have any particular credence to the time of day. Women are nauseous in the evening and nauseas in the morning. There is often no distinction.

Nausea and vomiting may be mild, moderate or severe, but is usually separate from the disease hyperemesis gravidarum as this term is reserved for the most severe type of nausea and vomiting and typically involves a metabolic disturbance and significant weight loss (usually an excess of 5 percent of a woman's pre-pregnancy body weight)

Hyperemesis is often so severe; it almost always interferes with activities of daily living and can lead to depression and anxiety. Most woman can barely keep up with their own care, they cannot care for others and have difficulty with work performance. Before modern medicine, hyperemesis was so severe it could even lead to death in the worst cases.

What causes nausea and vomiting of pregnancy is unknown and most likely the result of multiple different factors including hormone changes, changes in the gastrointestinal tract, genetic factors, and nutritional deficiencies.

While there are several factors that cause it individually and the exact cause may be unknown, hyperemesis is usually an accumulation of more than one type of trigger. Nevertheless, even though the exact cause is hard to pin down, there are several remedies that work well. This podcast outlines a myriad of treatment tactics for nausea and vomiting and hyperemesis gravidarum.

How is hyperemesis gravidarum different from the standard nausea and vomiting a woman typically feels? What can be done? What modern treatments are available to women?

These questions and more are answered in our latest episode.

Update: June 2021. We have an update to include from a listener.

In April, Dr. Fejzo gave a seminar on HG to over 5000 mfms from 169 countries translated in 4 languages https://fetalmedicine.org/courses-n-congress/fmf-webinars/webinar-videos. The quick seminar is just 15 quick minutes followed by a discussion and a great way to get up-to-date on HG.

Further, the HER Foundation www.hyperemesis.org can help with education and support and HER and UCLA co-developed a free iphone app to help with HG management https://www.hyperemesis.org/tools/hg-care-app/

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