Click here for printable version!

Yes, it�s miserable! �Morning Sickness� can be all-day sickness! The miserable feeling that you are about to vomit feels a lot like motion sickness. Once you start throwing up it is hard to make it stop. But you can do it if you know what to do! Take my advice and kick morning sickness in 5 steps!

1. Know that the first food that touches your mouth each morning is going to set your metabolism for that day. If the food is a high carbohydrate food (like toast, crackers, juice, cereal, anything like that) it�s going to set your blood sugar and on a roller coaster for the day. That roller coaster leads to more nauseousness and more vomiting! If the first food that touches your mouth in the morning is a high protein food (like nuts, yogurt, cottage cheese, milk, eggs, etc.) your metabolism will be set for the day on an �even keel.� That means fewer spikes and dips in your blood sugar and less nausea and vomiting! Sometimes the husband will make a protein shake for the wife and set it on her bedside table so she doesn�t even have to get out of bed before she has her morning protein.
2. After you have started eating protein first thing in the morning, the next step is to make sure that you eat a protein snack right before bed. This is so your blood sugar doesn�t get too low overnight, causing nauseousness first thing in the morning.
3. The third step is to make sure you eat a little snack every 2 waking hours, and each time you wake during the night. Protein-rich snacks are best. Try apple slices dipped in peanut butter, or cottage cheese with fresh fruit cut up on top. Keep a jar of nuts on your nightstand, so when you get up to pee during the night, you can throw a few peanuts or almonds in your mouth and chew them while you walk like a zombie to the toilet and back. That way you can get right back to sleep without having to go get food or have a bright refrigerator light in your face (that can make you wake up too much to go back to sleep).
4. Remember, if you are well hydrated those hormones in your blood that are causing you to feel sick or going to be thinned out and you will feel better. So try to drink at least two to three quarts of water everyday.
5. Finally, if you throw up you will have a 10 or 15 minute window during which you will not throw up again. During this window of time, your body can absorb nutrients to make the vomiting stop! Therefore, if you throw up, force yourself to eat a protein food immediately! I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but this is not the flu. The only way to get off of the moring-sickness-merry-go-round is to eat your way off it! So keep a little protein snack like nuts or a cheese stick with you at all times.

These steps really do work to reduce or eliminate nausea and vomiting of pregnancy. Do them all consistently each day and you will feel relief! Even if you don�t feel like eating it, make yourself eat two bites of protein food and get off that nauseous roller-coaster! Your food is your medicine! And your medicine is your food!

Blessings!

:) Deborah