When food will not stay down
She is sick at 6pm and someone still calls it morning sickness. Ignore the name. Nausea, dry retching and vomiting can hit any hour.
It can start very early. It usually peaks between 6 and 12 weeks and starts to ease by about 14 weeks. Some women cop it for longer.
Raising Children says about two thirds of pregnant women get it. It is usually not harmful to her or the baby. That does not make the bathroom floor a small problem.
Symptoms run from mild to savage, constant or occasional, and they can differ from one pregnancy to the next. Your move is the house, not a lecture. An empty stomach makes the nausea worse, so food before she is hungry beats a heroic dinner.
Find what she can actually face. The page suggests salty, bland, dry or higher protein foods. Plain lean meat, boiled rice, tofu, yoghurt, crackers, toast, cereal, fruit.
Spicy and fatty food is a common trigger. Small amounts, often, beat three sit down meals she cannot finish. Fluids the same way.
Little, often, so she does not dry out. Cold, clear, fizzy or sour drinks get a mention. Water, ice, ginger ale, lemonade.
You can be the person who keeps a glass in reach and does not comment on the waste.
Tiredness feeds the sickness. If her week is packed with work, chores and people, something has to drop until this eases. That something can be your social plan, or a chore you take without a speech.
Do not put a supplement in her hand because a forum said ginger. Antihistamines, ginger and vitamin B6 come up as options, and so do prescribed anti-nausea drugs if it is severe. A GP or pharmacist has to say what is safe in pregnancy before anything is taken.
Acupressure on a wrist point is mentioned too. Check that with the midwife or doctor as well. Alternative is not the same as harmless.
Know the line for help, and do not wait for the next booked visit if she is on the wrong side of it. She should see a midwife or doctor quickly if she is vomiting and cannot keep food and fluid down, if there is blood in the vomit, if she looks dehydrated, or if she is worried.
Dehydration on the page looks like less wee, dark urine, sunken eyes, a dry mouth and tongue, weight loss, tiredness and lethargy. They will check it is not something else, and that she and the baby are getting fluid and nutrients.
There is a nastier version. About 2 to 3 in every 100 pregnant women get extreme nausea and vomiting with no other cause. That is hyperemesis gravidarum, not a tough week of morning sickness. It needs medical care, not stronger ginger biscuits.
The mood part is easy to miss because everyone is staring at the bucket. Morning sickness can feed stress, anxiety and depression. If her emotions, thinking, behaviour or body are off for more than two weeks, or she has a racing heart and worry that will not stop, that is a GP visit too.
If the sickness is bad enough that people need to know she is pregnant earlier than you planned, tell them. The point is practical. Someone else buys the plain food, does a chore, takes the other kids.
She rests. You can be that someone on a Tuesday night without making it a personality.
Source: Raising Children Network