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Midwife's Musings

 

Easing Nausea in Pregnancy

By Vanita Lott, R.N., B.S.N., C.N.M

There is a dramatic increase of hormones being produced in pregnancy.  Your liver needs to process these hormones and do all it’s other essential tasks.  Nausea may be a protective mechanism so that women don’t eat harmful substances in early pregnancy when the tiny unborn baby is the most vulnerable; usually women need to eat very plainly.  Your “morning sickness” might not just be in the morning; it might last all day or be worse later in the day.

  These are some currently recommended treatments for nausea and vomiting of pregnancy.  Most women try these in various combinations and use what works best.  Women with mild nausea and vomiting are known to do well and have healthy babies.  30%-50% of women report some nausea and/or vomiting in early pregnancy.  Nausea will usually go away at about 14weeks so hold on!

If you are planning to get pregnant you may want to do a liver cleanse before conceiving to reduce your risk of nausea.  Any naturopathic physician can help you do a liver cleansing which is good for your overall health as well.

Diet:  Low blood sugar will aggravate your symptoms.  Eat dry toast or crackers immediately before or on arising.  Eat small frequent meals throughout the day and eat something before going to bed.  If you awake at night have a snack.  Some women carry a bagel, toast or crackers with them in their purse to snack on throughout the day.   Eat what is appealing and avoid foods that aggravate your nausea.  Avoid simple sugars, eat complex carbohydrates.  You may find drinking your food to be easier; sometimes smoothies are easier to tolerate than eating. 

Vitamins

Prenatal Vitamin:  A good prenatal formula has many vitamins your body needs.  Rainbow Light makes an excellent but expensive vitamin that can be purchased at most health food stores.  Do not take your prenatal vitamin on an empty stomach; take it after a meal.  Some women find that they need to wait until their nausea has resolved to resume their prenatal vitamin.  Your vitamin can’t help you if you will throw it up!

Vitamin B6:  An important vitamin to help break down and eliminate increased levels of hormones in pregnancy.  It is effective in most cases and has been well researched and used for decades.   25mg 2-4 times a day.  (You need more than what is in your prenatal vitamin).  In severe cases women may need B6 injections.

Vitamin C and K:  Both these vitamins used in combination have been shown to reduce nausea in 72 hours; used separately they showed little effect.  Vitamin C-250mg 2-3 times a day combined with Vitamin K:  5 mg/day.  Can purchase liquid Vitamin K-1 from our office if desired.

Ginger:  Has a long tradition in alleviating symptoms of gastrointestinal distress including nausea and vomiting of pregnancy and has been researched.  Has been shown to be effective even in the most severe cases when women are hospitalized.  Can buy ginger tea bags in some stores.  Can make ginger tea fresh from fresh root sliced or grated and simmered for approximately 10-15 minutes.  Some women try sipping on ginger ale or eat ginger cookies.  Dry ginger can also be made into tea.  1-2 grams of dry ginger/day is a reasonable dose.

Lemon:  Fresh lemon in water is used by many women; lemon helps the liver cleanse.  Some women like lemon so much they suck on lemon wedges!!

Yellow Dock: 25-50 mg. per day. This is one midwife's first remedy to trial.

Teas & Tinctures- Herblore is a local company that carries a Nausea Relief tea and tincture for pregnancy.  They can be reached at 530-470-8858, 877-808-5815 or www.herblore.com.  Wishgarden is an online herb store.  Contact them at 888-301-2926, or at info@wishgardenherbs.com.

Accupressure:  Seabands are an elastic band with hardened plastic balls that continuously stimulates the acupressure point on the wrist that helps reduce nausea.  You can purchase them at local pharmacies.  For even more effectiveness you can wear a “Relief Band” which sends tiny amounts of electrical stimulation to this same Accupressure point.  We rent relief bands to our clients.  They can be purchased online at www.safehomeproducts.com.  You could also go for accupressure or accupuncture sessions but be certain to tell the practitioner you are pregnant so they know the points that need to be avoided in pregnant women.

Aromatherapy:  A drop of lavender oil in the bath can be helpful; also single drops of ginger, fennel and peppermint oils mixed in an ounce of vegetable oil and massaged into the skin can help settle your stomach.

Homeopathy & “Body Talk”- There are eight different homeopathic remedies recommended depending on your symptoms.  The list can be found in the book, “Natural Healing for the Pregnant Woman by E. Burch, Naturopathic Doctor.  You could also have a “Body Talk” session with Betty Noni Nelson- who is an experienced and respected homeopath and body talk therapist who will see what your particular system needs.  She can be reached at 265-9464.

Emotional issues to consider- Women with severe symptoms especially if they go past the 14th week of pregnancy may wish to consider emotional or psychological issues that can be worsening their symptoms.  Women with unplanned or undesired pregnancy or women with poor relationships with their mothers are known to often have more severe symptoms that last longer.   If your symptoms are severe or last past the 14th week consider exploring these issues to help you find relief.  These women are advised to enter counseling to help resolve these internal conflicts.  Gayle Peterson is a local therapist that specializes in childbearing issues.  She can be reached at 530-348-2534.

Medical Intervention:  If you aren’t able to keep anything down for 8-12 hours, your urine is dark or if you are losing weight you should see your physician or midwife.  There are currently some prescription medications that doctors will prescribe in some cases.  In very severe cases women may need IV therapy or be hospitalized.

Vanita Lott, RN, BS, CNM is a Certified Nurse Midwife and owner of the In-Home Birth Center.  She is a highly experienced labor and delivery nurse that completed a 2 year Nurse-Midwifery Program in 1997 and is nationally certified as a Nurse-Midwife.  She has studied a wide variety of alternative healing techniques.  Her vocation is to provide women and their families with safe and excellent holistic pregnancy, birth and well-newborn care services.  GV office-477-7333 or Auburn office- 888-7711.  Great Website/birth photo album:   www.midwife.nu

 

Animal vs. Human Birth

The protocols in the world of animal husbandry to protect an offspring at the time of birth—no strangers, dimmed lights, freedom of movement, familiar environment, unlimited nourishment, respectful quiet, no disruptions—are done without hesitation because to do otherwise invites "unexplained distress" or sudden demise of the offspring. These thoughtful conditions are the norm, along with careful observation to determine when to use the technological expertise in true emergencies. When we have veterinarians in our childbirth education classes, they always start to smile and nod when I tell this story. These are givens—instinctive givens, even, for animals of all descriptions!

Yet what are the "givens" for the human who births not in a barn, but in a "modern and advanced" hospital? In many cases, 100% the opposite! Usually a minimum of a dozen strangers pass through the world of the laboring mother in her first 12 hours in the hospital—security officer, patient transporter, triage secretary, admission clerk, triage nurse, resident and/or doctor on call, admitting nurse, first shift nurse, break nurse, additional nurse at delivery, doctor or midwife plus possibly students, anesthesiologist, pediatrician, etc. Bright lights in the triage and labor rooms are challenging to dim. Mothers are tethered to monitors or IV poles and are moved through a bright hall with unfamiliar sounds to a new room in a building devoted to illness/trauma that most have visited once briefly if at all. They receive poor quality "clear liquids only." They are exposed to voices of others in the hall or chatting by the attendants during contractions and endless disruptions throughout! But then, do we ever find that we have an offspring experience "unexplained distress?" Of course, and at frightening rates! Yet, oddly, many of these disruptions are promoted as minor inconveniences or necessary to "protect" the baby.

Curiously, while veterinarians commonly have to defend interventions in light of the additional cost and the risks associated with interfering with nature, providers caring for human mothers within the medical system more commonly are forced to defend why they did NOT intervene! Consider the high rates of inductions, epidurals, artificial rupture of membranes, immediate cord cutting, cesareans and the vigorous defense necessary to fight for anything different, especially if time is involved (time to go into labor, to progress, to push, to allow the cord to stop pulsation or to get "done" bonding). I've recently seen outstanding CNMs and obstetricians sacrifice their own political reputations and suffer departmental reprimands for births with great outcomes where they protected the mothers' yearning for privacy, allowed extended pushing time with great vital signs or, during a healthy normal birth, followed their intuition and honored the mother's begging to check heart tones frequently by hand during pushing instead of what the mother considered the massive intrusion of wearing the monitor belt. Interventions are considered to be the ultimate protection from litigation in human care, yet they contribute mightily to the high rates of distress in mothers and babies!

In animal husbandry, the first line of defense for protecting the unborn is to protect and nurture the nutritional needs and comfort of the birthing female. In the case of institutionalized birth for humans, however, in spite of evidence to the contrary, the norm is to act as if the nutritional needs and the comfort of the birthing mothers are of concern to, at most, the marketing and public relations department! It's an affront to common sense that as a society we are currently more accepting of the needs of foaling mares, whelping poodles and high-producing cows than of our birthing humans. From the high rates of fetal distress, meconium staining and breastfeeding problems, the consequences are clearly devastating to our infants, just as any decent horseman would predict.

— Beth Barbeau
Excerpted from "Safer Birth in a Barn?," Midwifery Today, Issue 83

Breast Health and Diet

"Salt, and foods that are high in sodium, cause the body to retain fluid, which adds to breast discomfort," says Yankauskas. Switch your table salt to low-sodium products, and cut back on canned and processed foods. Fast-food restaurants also dish up many high-sodium meals.

According to Yankauskas, many women feel the difference in breast comfort very quickly when they cut back on coffee. "Some women are very sensitive to caffeine and have to eliminate it completely from their diets. But when they do, their breast discomfort improves."

Caffeine is found in coffee, tea, soft drinks, chocolate, and some over-the-counter pain medications.

"Switching from coffee to herbal tea can help many women with breast problems because some herbal teas act as a diuretic, removing extra fluid from breast tissues," says Yankauskas. "The extra fluid causes swelling and discomfort."

Yankauskas also recommends drinking purified water. "I believe there are many pesticides in the environment and water systems today, which the body turns into hormonal substances." Recent animal studies have shown that pesticides can be converted into hormonal substances. This association justifies further investigation into the link between pesticides and breast and prostate cancers, she adds.

You can purchase a faucet water purifier at home improvement centers or specialty water stores. Bring a bottle of purified water to work with you, so you can have it anytime. It's also a good idea to bring along your own purified water when you travel. "This is something that I do," says Yankauskas.

Add these foods to your diet:

·  Nuts and seeds (for vitamin E)

·  Soy milk (on breakfast cereal)

·  Soy shake (soy milk blended with plain
fat-free yogurt, wheat germ, and fruit, such as strawberries)

·  Tofu burgers

·  Purified water

·  Herbal tea (dandelion, nettle, parsley,
uva-ursi, corn silk, or buchu tea)

Eat less, or eliminate, these foods:

·  Meat (unless hormone-free)

·  Canned or processed foods (unless low-sodium)

·  Coffee and soda (unless decaffeinated)

·  Fast-food meals