Property Search
Cars Online
Buy DVDs online
Local sleepovers
Book flights online!
Work money smarter
Wine of the Week
Life Insurance Quote
Online Dating
Save on your insurance
Houses for sale
Go shopping!
Convert anything 
Henrie's Recipes
Nausea in pregnancy
Posted Wed, 21 Feb 2001
Question
My wife is six weeks' pregnant and has constant nausea. Is there anything she can take and what types of food will hopefully stay down?
Answer
The first thing to say is that this will pass - even if she still experiences some nausea later in the pregnancy - it is unlikely to remain as bad as it is in the early stages.
There is nothing she should take, not prescription, over-the-counter or so-called alternative. The first three months are a very sensitive time in the baby's development and the time during which it is most likely to be harmed by drugs.
Diet is a problem since, paradoxically, an empty stomach definitely makes the nausea worse in most women. The usual advice is to eat little and often, avoiding things which she knows make her particularly nauseous. Being overtired will make the nausea worse, so she should try not to get overtired.
Snack foods which are suggested by a number of books on pregnancy which seem to be the most palatable are things like slices of brown bread dried in the oven, sandwiches with wholemeal bread and hard cheese, nuts and raisins, dried apricots, fruit cake, crisp green apples, water crackers and cottage cheese. It really is a question of experimenting with different types of food and seeing what is possible.
If she continues to be as sick as she is at the moment, then she needs to discuss the whole situation with her gynaecologist, since some women suffer from a particularly severe form of nausea and sickness in pregnancy called hyperemesis gravidarum and sometimes need to be in hospital for a few days.
