Morning Sickness: Anything I Can Do To Resolve It?

Ready to find out what things you can do to rid yourself of morning sickness? Good! I'm ready to help you! First a little information:

During pregnancy, the body creates the HCG (Human chorionic gonadotropin) hormone in large amounts. This hormone sustains the pregnancy and is the hormone they use to confirm conception. After this and other pregnancy hormones are used up, they need to be filtered out of the blood stream and out of the body.

It's the liver's job to filter fat soluble substances from the blood and hormones are fat soluble substances. Therefore, it becomes the job of the liver to filter these expended hormones. The only way the liver has to get rid of them is to release them into the bile (digestive enzyme that breaks down fatty acids) and the bile carries them through the digestive tract so they can be eliminated from the body.

The harder your liver has to work at filtering these hormones and the more bile that has to be released to get rid of them, the more nausea you will feel. Our high fat western diet doesn’t help. As we consume more fatty acids, the liver needs to release even more bile to digest those fatty acids. Then the body recycles what bile it can back to the liver. The problem is that with high fat diets, some debris hangs on to the bile that is being recycled and the body needs to create even more bile to get rid of the accumulating debris, therefore causing more nausea.

The answer lies primarily in cleansing the liver before pregnancy so that it does not become over taxed during pregnancy resulting in morning sickness. You're probably reading this because you are already pregnant in which case you should never try to cleanse your liver during pregnancy. Doing so will empty toxins and ither harmful things that your liver stores to keep you healthy right into your bloodstream which will carry through the placenta and into your baby. These toxins will also go through the breastmilk as well.

The next best answer lies in consuming more soluble fiber, which you can of course do while pregnant. Legumes and beans -any beans- are extremely high in soluble fiber. In fact, soluble fiber and bile get along quite well with each other. They will bind so tightly to each other that they cannot be separated. Since fiber (soluble or insoluble, cannot cross the intestinal barrier, the bile will exit through the body and will not be recycled. The debris that has accumulated will begin to be removed and then you will feel less nausea!

Possible Solutions:

1. Eat ¼ cup of cooked beans: You will see results in less than 20 min. If HCG is at high levels, you will need to eat another 1/4 cup within 1-4 hours. After a few days, there will be more debris that has left the body from the cleaning you have started and you will begin to feel less nauseous, only needing to eat your legumes once or twice a day.  Beans are cheap and it certainly doesn't hurt to try this. If you don't like beans, you may even develop a taste for them!

2. Ginger Tea & eating 80 g of protein a day: Something else that I have found to be effective is ginger tea. I don't find ginger capsules to be effective for our pregnant ladies. Drink 1 quart of strong Ginger tea a day. You can find fresh ginger at your grocery store it will really help nausea go away too.  You can add some black strap molasses (good source of natural iron!) or raw honey to sweeten it if you need to. It also tastes great if you add some cinnamon! It's also super important to make sure you are getting 80 of protein a day while you are pregnant. This is one reason I think the beans help.

3. Magnesium deficiency: Morning sickness is also associated to be a deficiency in magnesium. I like the liquid magnesium from Butterfly Express that you can find here because it is very easily absorbed by the body. Take a teaspoon at a time, a couple times a day or 400-500 mg 2x a day. It might take a bit more if you are really deficient.

4. Pregnancy Hormone Balancer formula: "PHB, as the former name implies, is a formula which brings hormones into balance and is especially effective for relieving symptoms that sometimes arise in pregnancy. A woman in good health should feel wonderful and be able to enjoy the experience. Nausea, mood swings, headaches, a lot of food cravings, muscle and joint pain, and general crankiness are NOT a normal part of pregnancy in healthy women!

PHB is just as often needed between pregnancies as during a pregnancy. It is a formula designed for balancing hormones and is particularly effective for low progesterone levels and inefficient adjustments of hormones during the monthly cycle. PHB is absolutely essential for women who have had repeated early first-trimester miscarriages. (See MC formula for further explanation of this situation and what can be done to correct it.)" -LaRee Westover Butterfly Express

Use this formula at your own risk, it contains a small amount of black Cohosh which is known by most health practitioners to not be used until the end of pregnancy. I have known others including myself who use it during pregnancy and it works wonderfully.

5. No Dairy: "We were supposed to be weaned at 18 months of age as milk is the food intended for young species. Nowhere else in Nature does any animal continue to drink milk after the age of weaning. Only humans and the animals we have domesticated do that. Milk is loaded with antibiotics, infections and hormones. All of which work against us when we are trying to carry a healthy pregnancy. Our body tends to rebel milk during pregnancy more than other times of life. Based on my experience, milk consumption tends to be the primary reason for morning sickness. Stop dairy especially milk, ice cream, yogurt, and soft cheeses. Block cheeses do not seem to be as responsible for this problem. When you want milk for something like hot cereal try almond, coconut or rice milk." -Donna Young N.D. Powerfully Pregnant