Morning sickness is a nauseating feeling that is experienced during pregnancy. Even though the term implies that this sensation occurs during the morning, morning sickness can strike at any point of the day.
Morning sickness involves nausea, lightheadedness or vomiting. Symptoms of morning sickness varies from case to case, some experience it during mornings, evening, or even all day. These bouts of morning sickness can drain the mother’s energy, leaving them tired almost all day.
If you are planning a baby or having one in its earliest stages, you might be worried or scared about encountering it. But don’t stress about it anymore, it is bad for your baby, in this article I will try to describe to you what does morning sickness feel like and a few tips on how to deal with them.
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What causes morning sickness?
There is no clear cut answer or causes of morning sickness, but scientists have speculated that hormones are the root of all of this.
One particular hormone is the Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, which is commonly known as hCG. This hormone exists only in small to no amounts in a normal woman’s body, but when a woman is pregnant, the amount of this hormone increases multiple times.
The peak production of this hormone can often be also the time of your worst encounters of morning sickness. But correlation doesn’t often entail causation, especially since the production of other hormones like Estrogen are very high during this period.
Another suspected reasons for morning sickness includes sensitive stomach and stress. There are speculations that the changes in the woman’s womb makes the stomach extra-sensitive and thus, causing morning sickness. Stress can also be a factor, although it can be the other way around, that Morning Sickness causes stress.
Morning sickness starts in the first month of pregnancy and usually last for a month or two.
What does morning sickness feel like?
Nauseous
First of all, I would like to say that every pregnant woman would experience Morning Sickness differently. Some would have it bad, while some will barely experience it at all. The General symptoms of morning sickness is already described above; it is a nauseating sensation that can lead to lightheadedness or vomiting.
This sickening feeling can be triggered if they smell anything conspicuous or bad. This aversion to certain smells can be different for all women, most common smell aversions include coffee, alcohol, cigarette smoke, fish, meat, or anything at all.
Heart Burn or Acidity
Morning sickness can also take the form of the symptoms of Heartburn. These symptoms can be described as a burning feeling that is felt in the upper parts of the stomach and up to the esophagus or chest.
This feeling of hunger pains and burning sensation is commonly felt in the morning, especially coming from a long night of sleep. They feel that there is too much acidity in their stomach, and they would have a high chance of vomiting whenever they can’t eat something soon enough.
Stomach Cramps
Stomach Cramps also comes along with Morning Sickness, especially as the pregnancy advances. This is caused by the pressure that the growing fetus is applying to the uterine walls or the result of the production or imbalances of the hormones.
How to deal with morning sickness
Now that we have some knowledge of the causes of morning sickness and also on how it feels like, let’s move on and tackle on how to deal with it.
Rest and don’t be guilty being absent
Sometimes, morning sickness just feels unbearable, and you feel like you just can’t drag your body out of bed and, the thought of going to work makes your feeling only go worse. When this happens, you better rest at home and be absent at work.
You may not be fully aware of it, but your body is working full time and over time on growing that baby so don’t be guilty of being absent, treat it as a well-deserved rest. Don't be guilty of being absent, treat it as a well-deserved rest.
Find a scent that comforts you
Estrogen is a hormone that is largely involved in smell, and this hormone is in large quantities when you are pregnant, this is the cause for the acute sensitivity for smelling.
Just like when you are developing smelling aversions to some things, you can also develop a preference for other kinds of smells. So find a scent that will comfort you during the bouts of sickness, some suggestions we can give are the scents of lemon extracts or fresh rosemary.
Drink plenty of water
Morning sickness can often leave you feeling drained because literally, you are vomiting fluids out from your body. So it is important for mothers to be hydrated and drink plenty of water. However, drinking lots of water can be difficult especially when you are feeling sick all the time, so you have to be creative to trick your body into accepting the water.
Schedule and estimate your food intake
The Acid or Heart Burn sensation that we described earlier can be triggered by an empty or full stomach. So be careful on eating too little or too much, you have to schedule and estimate your food intake.
Instead of three meals per day, you can space out these meals and eat five times a day. In these meals, you have to estimate the amount of food you eat; you have to make sure that you won’t be too full or be hungry until the next scheduled meal.
Conclusion
We have learned that morning sickness is a common symptom that pregnant women face during the first months of pregnancy. These times can be hard and stressful for the mother, for they undergo the experience of being nauseated, dizzy and tired all the time. There is no perfect solution or medicine for morning sickness; all we have are few natural and practical techniques that are described above to alleviate the conditions of the mothers.
I hope you find this article fun and informative if you have questions kindly address them below. Suggestions and recommendations are also welcome and are much appreciated.
