One of my dearest friends has been trying to get pregnant with her third for a few years. She's lost multiple babies, but it looks like her current pregnancy is going to stick!!!!!!! She is very sick- a great sign!- and I need suggestions to help her. I already told her I'd take her kids for a day next week, but I want to do more.
For starters, suggestions for good foods? She can't keep anything down, and she is already a size 0.
I was thinking I could make her chicken soup? What else could I make her? She says she doesn't need anything, but I am so thrilled that she is pregnant, I want to do something special for her.
I need your best food suggestions for morning sickness and ideas of how I can help her.
I may make the rest of her family food, but I ordered her a bunch of ginger stuff, tea, etc. Hopefully something will work.
I remember eating lots of mashed potatoes with my second kid. I was so sick with him.
You ladies are the best!!!! So many great suggestions. I get the feeling my friend can't make any decisions right now -that advice is spot on!- so I'm going to have to be my type A self and just do stuff for her--I just need to convince her to let me! I was at her house yesterday and it was dirty. She is an amazing housekeeper, so I'm sure the dirt has to be making her feel worse. Maybe I can convince her to play with my toddler while I scrub her floors.
I had round-the-clock morning sickness every day until the day I had both my kids. None of the saltines/ginger/eat frequently stuff helped me at all. Ondansetron (Zofran) made a huge difference.
Otherwise, someone taking my kids or cooking a meal for the rest of my family so I wouldn't have to handle and smell food would have been about the best thing I could have imagined.
I had to go on a boat with family and I KNOW I get seasick. I googled and found out about ginger gum - it's available at pharmacies - kinda pricy, but it's not as spicy as actual ginger, and it worked for me! I was VERY happy. I'd say it's 95% effective as there's just a touch of "weird" as opposed to full on nausea.
Nothing helped me other than slowly eating saltine crackers and chewing papaya pills (from the health food store.)
Even then I was a vomiting mess for the whole second, third and fourth month. Soup would have totally made me gag (too close of a consistency to vomit.)
I wish her luck, that was the worst part of pregnancy for me :-(
My neighbor absolutely swore by almonds. Sounds odd but it worked for her. The protein was good for her - better than the typical saltines. She liked the lightly salted ones and just kept them at hand, in the car, etc., and just ate 1 about every 20 minutes.
The additional problem with morning sickness is when it degenerates into such severity that the actual decline in sugars & salts results in endless dry heaves. So when I worked in a clinic we often had to run an IV just to get the woman back up to the level where they could eat something. So, the being sick just makes you sicker - if that makes sense. I've often recommended a particular sports drink that is patented (therefore safe) and lacking artificial dyes. The sugar in it is real fructose (NOT high fructose corn syrup like you find in most ginger ales). It is highly absorbable in just a few minutes so often, if the woman can keep it down for just a little bit, she gets the benefit. I've also recommended a comprehensive and balanced general nutrition formula that, again, is highly absorbable - so what little a woman absorbs even if she does get sick at least provides some benefit. We find a lot of women can tolerate that (it's also used by cancer patients who are often nauseated from chemo) and it's additionally beneficial because a lot of morning-sick women throw up their prenatal vitamins (which themselves can cause digestive upset).
The chicken soup is okay if she's in the mood. But there's not much you can give her that's so nutrient-laden without being hard to digest. The mashed potatoes worked for you, but there's not a lot of nutrition in them. The best thing would be for her to eat something that calms her stomach enough that she can eat other things little by little.
Also I'm sure she knows but you can remind her to eat small amounts very frequently. She's got to keep her protein level up and stay hydrated.
I'd imagine that taking care of her other kids, providing meals for the family, maybe doing errands (if she's sick or dizzy, she shouldn't drive much), letting her rest, etc. would be even more beneficial. Maybe you can organize some neighbors or friends to just pitch in without her having to actually make all the decisions? Maybe that's what she means when she says she doesn't need anything - she just isn't up to deciding, or she feels that nothing will work, or both.
Maybe make her a basket with a ton of options, maybe she can go through them to find what works for her?
I would include:
Pretzels/oystercrackers/saltines
Preggie pops
Ginger candy/tea
A couple of fresh lemons (lemon water or even smelling lemons helped me)
A couple of different small bottles of mouthwash- all that puking, she'll need to find a mouthwash that doesn't make her even sicker!
Peppermint, lavendar, ginger, and/or citrus essential oils
Maybe some comfort foods- mashed potatoes (a Tupperware of fresh or a box, if that's how she rolls :) ), Ramen noodles, mac n cheese, things that are really easy to digest. I liked the boxed rice pilaf, for some reason. Also, sorry to be gross, but it is way better to throw up noodles or rice than something more complicated.
Maybe one of those eye-mask ice packs.
Maybe one of those accu-pressure bracelets
Not everything will help her, but odds are that something will!!
I was only sick for 16 weeks with my first but went to 24 weeks with my second, literally starting every single morning vomiting, then several times throughout the day... I really feel for her!! I have said many times that I would rather do labor twice than morning sickness once!
Have her try some crystallized ginger.
Hi J.,
No food suggestions but ginger can be bought in supplement form. It works really well. Ginger ale is good too but only if it has real ginger in it. Most don't. Nibbling during the day helped me...as soon as I stopped eating, I was sick again.
Regards,
M.
I wouldn't recommend foods... unless you mean snacks. Lemon drops were helpful to me when I was pregnant and sick.
All the usual suspects with real ginger in them... but too much of anything and you begin to associate it with the sickness itself and may not ever want it again.
(I've loooooved ginger-ale my entire life. I sipped so much of it during my first pregnancy, that I didn't want it anymore... at all... ever... until my first born was probably 9 years old.)
You could recommend she ask her doctor about medication to help with it. I couldn't take the first go-to drugs (like Phenergen) because they made me sleepy, and I had a toddler to keep up with. But Zofran didn't make me sleepy and actually really did help.
If she has all the advice she can stand already (and she might)... just continue to offer and actually take her kids on a regular basis. Even if you don't TAKE them anywhere, but stay at her house and let her go lay down in her bedroom.
Beyond that.. if you really are set on preparing food, then prepare meals for the rest of her family, so that she doesn't have to stand in the kitchen herself making dinners.
--
No no no on the toddler playing. She CAN'T do that right now. It won't be a matter of convincing... she's physically ill. She isn't able. THAT is why taking HER kids is such a help to her.
Truly. Do not even suggest that to her. We had to send OUR toddler away to stay with grandparents during part of my "morning" (round the clock the entire pregnancy) sickness. It wasn't bc I didn't WANT to watch my son. It was because I could not do it. It was for his own safety.
I know it sounds strange but with my third I was extremely all-day sick. They finally put me in the hospital for a week on IV's and when I went home I had my husband get me vegetable fried rice. For some reason that really stuck with me and started to give me some stamina. I ate vegetable fried rice (from the local restaurant) breakfast, lunch and dinner for about three weeks. Finally, with medicine and additional iv's, I turned the corner and started feeling much better. I hope you friend gets better soon.
Well, you're right that it is a good sign. For me and my morning sickness, nothing worked. I tried everything, ginger, prego pops, saltines, lemons, you name it, I tried it. Nothing worked. The medicine the OB prescribed made me too tired to function so I just dealt with it from morning until around 4 p.m. the first three months. I remember eating a lot of yogurt (it's not so gross when coming back up), the only flavor I could stand was the Yoplait lemon burst. My OB recommended chicken soup because of the broth. She said as long as the food stays in for ten minutes, it'll give you some nutrients. Wishing her luck, hopefully it'll pass soon!
For some of us, morning sickness is a lot like having the stomach flu for 9 months. So try to think of foods you can actually tolerate when you have the stomach flu.
For me, the best foods are saltines, pretzels, Ginger Ale, Sprite and Gatorade.
Peppermint has helped some people, and I know sour candy, like lemon heads and sour patch kids, worked for me. Like the others said, ginger is good, too. Hope she feels better soon, and I'm glad she has a friend like you!
I threw up my entire 9 months and even DURING my c section. Nothing really helped me. I lost 56 pounds and had an 11# baby 2 weeks early. I know ginger snap cookies helped one of my friends. Hope you find something that helps.
Preggo Pops are supposed to work. I never tried them --- they weren't around when I was preggers.
Cinnamon always helps me with any tummy trouble. It has to be real cinnamon, so cinnamon toast or cinnamon grahms, or cinnamon toast crunch cereal (dry) might be a solution.
Candied ginger, in the baking section of the grocery store, I have heard chewing on a piece like it's gum helps.
I feel so bad for her. My daughter's friend was sick her entire pregnancy. So bad I asked when baby was about 2 weeks old if she had quit throwing up yet. She giggled and said YES.
I was sick my entire pregnancy with my first two kids. Taking her kids is a great start. I couldn't keep anything down but sister in law kept a plate by my bed with water or something to drink. But the biggest one is when she would come in and clean up around me and run my bath water. My husband was driving for FedEx at the
time aand if she didn't have the key and come to my aid I don't know how I would have made it.
I found that when I was getting really sick during my pregnancy it was more from a lack of something in my diet. I found that if I ate sourkraut first thing in the morning I never got sick throughout the day. Yes I ate it for 3 months on one kid, almost 6 on another. Yep I am sure I am the weird one, everyone said so, but really anything pickled calmed my stomach. Your being a great friend keep up the great work.
I was able to stop taking prescription anti-nausea medicine, felt much more myself, and was able to keep food down after my thoughtful aunt sent me this!
http://soothing-scents.com/index.php/morning-sickness/
taking her kids is great!
as for food, it varies so wildly. whatever's she's craving when she's NOT sick is a great place to start. but other than that, just the basics- crackers, anything with ginger, toast, tea, rice and so forth.
khairete
S.
I wish I had some ideas. I was sick and puking for at least 8 1/2 months when I was pregnant with my daughter. I would eat oatmeal for breakfast and puke it up, then not feel well and drink 7-Up, puke it up, I gained a lot of weight though so I guess it wasn't "ALL" coming up...lol.
I do empathize with her.
The only thing that helped me was sucking on a ginger candy I got from our grocery store's health food section. They're called Gin-Gins and they were the only thing that kept me from vomiting all day at work. http://gingerpeople.com/gin-gin-candies/gin-gins-hard-can...
I had very bad morning sickness with both my pregnancies and nothing helped me except acupuncture.
Any food or smell, made me sick.
And on top of that I had daily migraines.
Tell her to ask her doctor if she can take dramamine. I was miserable with morning sickness. My doctor said I could take dramamine for a flight and it coincidentally cured my morning sickness!!! I asked if I could keep taking it every day and he said it was perfectly safe. It worked like magic!!! Thank goodness I had to take that flight during my 6th week or I'd have been in for a long miserable few months of morning sickness.
