There are two reasons why you start feeling nauseous and may vomit during some point of your pregnancy.  We will look at both of them today and discover ways that you can reduce the side effects of what is going on in your body.

One reason that contributes to nausea is the rapid increase of hormones in your body, including relaxin.  Just as it’s name suggests, relaxin is a smooth muscle relaxer.  This becomes an issue when our body reacts to pregnancy hormones globally and all the smooth muscle of our digestive system also begins to slow down.  This can cause heart burn, reflux, indigestion, nausea, constipation and more, because the massaging action of peristalsis is slowed down due to the high presence of relaxin hormone.

Some ways that you can assist your digestion through out your pregnancy is to eat smaller meals more frequently to reduce the tax on your digestive system that a big meal could create.  Eat and drink ginger to aid in digestion and use lemon to reduce congestion in the body.  You can also take a probiotic every time you eat, or increase your fermented foods and liquids to help move the digestive process along.  Also, if you don’t own a squatty potty or a small stool to prop your feet on while having a bowel movement, this would be a great time to invest in one.

The second piece of the puzzle is that you need nutrient dense foods that regulate your sugar over the long term and don’t create spikes and crashes.   It’s going to feel counter intuitive to keep eating when we have taught ourselves to not eat when we feel nauseous or are vomiting.  Not eating will actually make it worse, because we are not sick, we are growing a baby.

The reason why it is called morning sickness is because many women only feel sick in the morning after fasting all night long.  The sooner you get some stable, nutrient dense food in your system the less likely that you will feel sick through out the day.  I always had something nutrient dense next to the bed with a juice box or ginger ale.  The drink gave me a spike and then the snack was digesting for the long term.  I would have them before even sitting up in bed.  It didn’t cure my morning sickness but it did reduce the length and severity.

You also want to stay hydrated.  This probably seems like a no brainer but you are going to need more water than usual.  Your body is increasing your blood supply at a rapid pace and created amniotic fluids, flushing waist for you and your baby and more.  You want to make sure that you and your baby have what is needed to stay hydrated and healthy.  As a generic rule of thumb, you should divide your bodyweight in half and drink that number in ounces of water per day.  For example, if you weigh 150 pounds you would drink 75 ounces in water per day.  If you are not used to drinking this much fluid you will be running to pee a lot.  Your body is like a dehydrated potted plant.  When you first begin to water it, the water sinks right through the pot and out the bottom.  Over time, the soil will begin to soften and absorb the watering, your body will also begin to absorb the water if you maintain your commitment to keeping you and your baby hydrated.