The most common discomfort of otherwise healthy pregnant mamas is morning sickness.   The response of hormonal, chemical and blood sugar changes in the woman’s body in the first months of pregnancy can cause queasy feelings and sometimes vomiting. Nothing can stunt motivation to do anything more than feeling sick to your stomach. Nausea can pretty much happen anytime of the day and is not limited to mornings. It gets the worse when mother has not eaten for a long period of time for example, night time sleeping.

The pregnant body requires increased nutritional support for a growing uterus, placenta and a baby. This is of course on top of your own nutritional needs.  Your baby and placenta are constantly drawing nutrition and water from your body 24 hours a day. It is important that your body has the fuel it needs to feed a pregnancy. So how do you do this? Well, you eat small meals all through the day. This is called “grazing”.  This means you eat or drink something every couple of hours and sip and nibble in between. I am not saying big meals every two hours but a bite to eat. Example would be cup of miso soup with some sea veggies, couple hours later, organic apple sauce, couple hours later 4-6oz protein, Maybe, in between some nuts and hot peppermint or ginger tea to sip on.

This includes during the night as well. Your baby and placenta still need fuel during the night too. So If dinner for you is at 6-7pm, and you don’t eat anything until you get up the next morning, that is  12 or more hours that your body is without fuel for your baby and placenta. Your blood sugar drops your placenta signals your brain that your body is needing food and water. The side effect of this stress on the body causes nausea or vomiting.

Drink plenty of water. Dehydration does not help the body get rid of toxins from excess hormonal and body pollutants for three reasons;. Your baby, your placenta and you. Pee and poo help do this and water is a very critical part of your body detoxing and makes this happen.

Of course when you’re having an episode of nausea, the absolute last thing you want to do is put something in your mouth. But honestly this works. The more you eat and drink water the less the nausea. It is better to drink some apple juice and vomit some of it up than to have dry heaves that can in some very severe cases rupture membranes. At least if you drink juice and vomit you will have gotten some sugars in your system and start feeling better or at least feel ok about sipping something and maybe eating something solid. When nausea is really bothersome sipping and nibbling can get you over the hump so you can actually eat something. This is the most effective way to turn morning sickness around and relieve symptoms.

In my practice I have a 48hrs morning sickness remedy that seems to work pretty well with most mamas.  

Graze and drink at least every 2hrs during the day and every 4hrs at night especially getting something to eat around 3-4 in the morning. This is when the blood sugar drops the lowest for most people. Set a timer for eating if you need to. When you get up to pee is always a good time to swallow some raw apple juice or pop a hardboiled egg, a piece of cheese, maybe crackers, or nuts or dried fruit. Something to give your body the fuel it and the baby needs.  Once you give your body what it needs to maintain your pregnancy you’re going to feel great! Pregnancy is meant to be enjoyed not endured.

Here are some other tricks to get through your first few months comfortably.

• Peppermint oil     Some women get instant relief from inhauling peppermint oil during waves of nausea. Great for motion sickness in kids too.
• Fresh air    About to loose it? Walk outside and take breaths of fresh air to get on top of those waves of nausea
• Walking   because of the increased hormonal and chemical by products of pregnancy that can build up if you are not eliminating properly this can cause nausea and vomiting so walking it off works wonders for prevention and relief.
• Homeopathics that work   Ipecac 30x, Nux Vomica 6x
• Celesta’s Morning sickness tea for new mamas   raspberry leaf, peach leaf, ginger or peppermint drink steeped cup first thing in am and through the day.
• Herbs and tinctures to have on hand two herbs that really help are ginger root taken first thing in morning, Also slower to work but is very effective wild yam root taken throughout the day and eve to manage or get control of symptoms.

Recently there has been more evidence based studies on the harm caused to our babies when we circumcise them. Why do parents justify this non-medical surgery for their sons? The most common answer to this question poised to parents who know the harm caused by circumcision is that it is for cosmetic reasons. They want their boys to avoid embarrasment from peers and want them to look like their fathers. Did you know that middle eastern cultures cut females for cosmetic reasons! We think this is hideous yet we do the same to our sweet baby boys. Even the american academy of Pediatrics does not recommend this very harmful proceedure and most insurance companies do not pay for the mutilation any more.

As it is, over 60% of baby boys in this country are intact! That means that those parents who choose to cut because of social stigmas are actually causing what they are trying to avoid. By the time these children are old enough to know the difference they will be the minority. There are awesome websites with tons of evidence based research on the topic.  On my website click on the “Timely Topics in Childbirth” archieves and listen to the show with Marilyn Milos of NOCIRC discuss the topic in more detail…. very eye opening! What is your opinion!