Nausea and Pregnancy
Nausea is a common pregnancy complaint and a topic often talked about in the first trimester. Today, I would like to give pregnant moms some helpful tips on how to lesson their nausea.
When discussing nausea in pregnancy there are two causes I like to address. The first one is nausea and how it can be related to low blood sugar. Secondly, we want to make sure it is not an issue with an over congested liver who is trying to deal with the over load of pregnancy hormones on top of everything else we pollute it with.
How do you know if you have the first one or the second? When are you feeling most nauseous? Is it only before meals, and does eating relieve it? If food releives the symptoms then it is probably just because of low blood sugar and the best way to deal with that is eating throughout the day. Small meals and snacking throughout the day on proteins and fresh fruits and veggetables will alleiviate the problem if is it just low blood sugar. It is important to cut out carbohydrates such as cakes, breads, pastas, white rice, potatoes, sugars, sodas, caffine, and anything that can cause spikes in the blood sugars. Avoid fast foods and eating things from cans or boxes as well. The more fresh you eat the better you will feel in the long run. Many women make the mistake of eating junk food and sodas and such becuase it is the only thing that sounds good at the time and though it may help you initially to feel better, you will feel worse later on.
If you have ruled out nausea caused by low blood sugar and eating does not help it or maybe it is an all day event for you, then it could be that your liver is overly congested. The liver has so much to process in a day. Everything you eat, drink, breath, all your hormones, cleaning products, skin and hair products, pesticides, medications, alchohol, herbicides, and so on has to go through the liver. That is a lot for the liver to process all in a day. If you don’t have a healthy clean liver to start with, which most of us don’t, you will feel very sick in the first trimester when your body is trying to process all the new hormones on top of all the toxins it normally has to.
Lets start with a healthy diet and some ways to gently detoxify the liver. In pregnancy you have to becareful with detoxifying the liver. You never want to do a full detox while pregnant. Talk to your midwife before attemping any detox programs. We will go over some safe and gentle ways to keep a clean liver and prevent further congestion in pregnancy.
Fresh squeezed lemon in your water
Fresh veggies and fruits
Cut out synthetic vitamins and change to food based ones
Fresh Jucing which I will give you some tips on later on
Cut out sugars and carbohydrates, which increase those insulin spikes which make is tough on the liver
Cut out caffine and sodas
Stick to more organic foods
Avoid using heavy and toxic cleaning products
Switch to natural body washes, tooth paste, deodarants, organic coconut oil as a lutricant, sunscreen or, moisturizer
Don’t put anything on the skin that you wouldn’t put in your mouth
Stay away from things like paint fumes, hair sprays, other chemcial toxins that can be inhaled
Vitamin B6 helps the liver detox
Bentonite Clay absorbs toxins in the gut and helps to prevent neausea and vomiting as well as diarreah
Homeopathics such as Nux Vomica are also helpful
Always talk to your midwife too for more helpful tips when you are having persisitant nausea and vomiting
Fresh Jucing in Pregnancy
This is an excerpt from the book: Pregnancy Childbirth and Chldren’s Diets by Joel robbins DC, MD
“Morning sickness results when the body, realizing that it is pregnant,
undergoes some extra-ordinary house-cleaning in an effort to make as
healthy a situation for the growing fetus as possible. While the mother
is sleeping, her body is actively removing posisons and delivering them
to the liver and kidneys for elimination. If these avenues of exit are
already overloaded, nausea results as teh liver is forced to dump toxin
directly into the intestine prior to neutralizing them.
The best thing to do for mornign sickness is to drink only juice— as
little or as much as you want— and don’t eat solids for about three
days. This gives the liver a break from digesting food and thus it can
focus more fully on catching up on toxic elimination. Follow this
practice whenever morning sickness occurs.
The concern that most women have when hearing that they must only drink
fresh juice for two to three days for morning sickness, is that the baby
will be deprived of nutrition. What must be kept in mind is that the
embryo is extremely small at this time, and does not require much
nutrition. In fact, it requires little if any outside nutrition. The
placenta is loaded with all kinds of nutrients especially to feed the new
embryo during the first few weeks of life. if there is a need for outside
nutrition at this time, the morning sickness will subside and a normal
appetite will return.
Some experience extreme morning sickness, to te point that the only thing
that will quell the severe nausea is toast, bread, crackers, etc. These
are acceptable at this time, eating minimal amounts to keep the nausea at
bay. Some additional things to consider with morning sickness is to take
the following:
Chromium, sometimes known as GTF (Glucose Tolerance Factor)
Vitamin B6
Both of these can be found in health food stores. Take double the
recommended dose listed on the lables.
There are also those new mothers who find that with or sometimes without
morning sickness, their tastes and cravings change to the point that some
or all raw fruites and vegetables are repulsive. to these i recommend
that they listen to their body and avoid these foods, eating steamed
vegetables, whole grains, white meat, attempting now and then to consume
some fresh and raw. Usually at the end of the first trimester, the
appetite for fresh and raw fruits and vegetables returns, and these
should then be added back into te diet. Again, there is no need for
concern that the mother and baby are being deprived of nutrition for not
eating the fresh and raw during this time. The whole grains, steamed
vegetables, etc., do contain viable nutrition. pages 20-21
As far as juicing another book by Dr. Robbins called Health Through
Nutrition talks about juicing.
Commercially produced juices are pasteurized which means dead no living
enzymes and full of sugar, food colorings, perservatives. Useless! Health
food store brands are better.
Sip juice slowly is allows for better digestion
Drink juice alone not with solid food. It is like a meal itself
Do not combine fruits and vegetables as these require different digestive
processes, fruits need to be separated from vegatables thus: All fruits
may be mixed together. All vegetables may be mixed together. All melons
may be mixed together. Except Lettuce and celery can be combined with
either fruit or vegetalbe juice and apples will mix with vegetable
juices. When making vegetable juice make it predomiinately 80% either
carrot juice or tomato juice and mix with celery, cucumbers, greeen
peppers, etc. While vegetalbe generally do not contain as high amounts of
glucose as fruits, carrot juice and tomato juice are both relatively
sweet, and will carry the tast of other nutritious vegetable if mixed in.
Be sure to put celery and/or lettuce in every glass fruit or vegetable.
This increase the calcium and B-vitamins input that is so important
during pregnancy and nursing. Pg 49-51″
I recommend for nausea 80% carrot, 2-3 stocks of celery and a wedge of
beat the size of an orange segment. The carrot gives the base and live
enzymes, the celery has the calcium and B vitamins, and the beat is good
for liver support and detock so important in helping with morning
sickness.