WEEK 6 – THE MORNING SICKNESS MYTH

by 2016, Holistic Pregnancy, Natural health, Pregnancy, Wellness

Weekly Baby News

Embryo: 5mm CRL – the size of a Pepita seed

The digestive system begins to form and organs become defined at a rapid pace. The respiratory systems continue to advance and excitingly bub’s heart begins to beat between 90 – 200bpm, very quick compared to our usual 60 -100bpm. This heartbeat can be heard if you have your 6-8 week scan. The embryo is becoming smarter this week with the brain developing into 5 areas plus the endocrine system is forming its adrenal cortex and medulla. The adrenal gland is a very important organ that we treat regularly later in life as it combats the stress response in the body plus assists in regulating blood sugar and much more. Facial features are beginning to take shape, I wonder who my bub will look more like me or my husband? Also tiny buds are begining to form for the soon to come limbs.

Naturopath’s Advice

Due to the endocrine attention this week it is important to avoid any pharmaceutical drugs (plus illicit of course), as it can be severely detrimental to such an important system of the body developing. With the exciting beginning of bub’s limbs, again, calcium is essential this week. I’m not much of a milk drinker but I did ensure I consumed a healthy bacteria filled yoghurt each day plus my green leafy greens as a side with dinner.

Here comes the sickness… Symptoms can start earlier if super sensitive or IVF, either way it isn’t fun, at all! You can experience nausea, vomiting, discomfort, sore breasts (if not already like me), headaches, stomach discomfort, constipation and even more tired if not already fatigued. I advise having 12 hours sleep a day in the first trimester, this may sound crazy however if your able to steal as many hours as possible you can reduce your symptoms, remember your GROWING A BABY and it is kind-of a huge deal. So respect your body and baby enough to give it the needed rest. If symptoms are unbearable please contact your naturopath for more individualised treatments

Natural Remedies for pregnancy symptoms (a few to get you started):

  • Ample Sleep

  • Cold washer or cold pack on forehead for headaches

  • Neck massage from the partner or friend to release the tension and help relax

  • Fresh air, head to the beach or park and ground those hooves in the earth

  • Deep breathing, it is astounding how many of us when in pain or discomfort shorten our breath when in fact we need to lengthen and deepen our breath

  • Child’s pose: this helped me immensely with nausea, seriously drop where ever you are to the ground and go into child’s pose – AMAZING!

  • Chamomile tea, this will help headaches, stomach discomfort, irritability

  • Ginger tea/ hydration drink. (Read below in My journey for more info + recipe)

Nausea Sickness Hydration Formula

*To be consumed at ANY point through the day when you experience Nora visiting

100mls of coconut water

¼ tsp Himalayan Salt

500mls Filtered Spring Water

20mls of Freshly juiced ginger (or blended with the water)

Juice of ½ lemon

Shake – Mix – or Blend together. Pour into a glass or stainless steel water bottle and away you go for the day.

My Journey:

This week I established the MORNING SICKNESS MYTH. In my experience I have no clue why they would call it ‘morning sickness’ as my sickness was not just in the morning but for most of the day. While I am quite lucky that it is just nausea and feeling unsettled in the stomach, I question if it would be better to just have the morning nausea with a vomit and be good for the rest of the day. My husband thought it would be a good idea to name my nausea seeing as she is always with me keeping me company, he named her Nora Nausea. Nora and I spent a lot of time together, turns out to be most of the day, except she would depart and do her own thing between 12 noon and 4pm before returning. She would wake me up of a morning and put me to bed at night, so lovely of her. My husband would laugh and say that I would have a Nora face when she was really present, those moments you can only stare at one spot to try and gather myself before being able to continue on, questioning if I needed to vomit or laydown.

This week everything became gross and stinks! The smallest things would set Nora off, feeding Meeka her dinner or smelling dirty washing as I was putting it in the washing machine. Food, especially meat was becoming difficult, Nora and I just thought the whole concept of meat was just disgusting!

As mentioned above B6 is great and I’m taking in my Natal Supplement. However I also found a Ginger hydration drink that I thought I would order and try. Now the first 2 ingredients are glucose and sucrose, which normally I would put straight back and never look at again. However reading on it provides ginger, lemon, electrolytes, B6 & vitamin C. From the sucrose and glucose I feel this would be helpful for those struggling with Nausea and can’t keep anything down as would assist with providing some energy, however I would be cautioned for those who have diabetes or risk of gestational diabetes depending on the rest of their diet, this is where it can get tricky and recommend you seek professional nutritional advice. Anyway with wanting to be the guinea pig, I got it and tried it and did feel it worked however could have been placebo also, but with cold water it was refreshing and I could handle it. I regularly advise my clients a homemade formula for hydration and I thought it would actually be easy to make a Morning sickness formula at home also. So I did… the recipe you see above 🙂

Lets hope Nora doesn’t continue to be so clingy to me in the coming weeks!

Yours in Health

Talita Sheedy

JOIN THE LAHLITA NEWSLETTER

Nunc consequat justo eget enim finibus porta. Suspendisse orci nunc. Nunc consequat justo eget enim finibus porta. Suspendisse orci nunc.

Welcome to Lahlita Natural Medicine.

Join the Lahlita Natural Medicine mailing list to hear about important clinic updates as well as upcoming workshops, retreats and webinars. 

Welcome! Thank you for signing up, keep an eye on your inbox for our updates.