Extreme Pregnancy Nausea – Hyperemesis Gravidarum
The symptoms are weight loss (more than 5 percent of pregnancy weight) and dehydration. Extreme pregnancy nausea and vomiting (morning sickness) is a condition called hyperemesis gravidarum. It doesn’t affect the majority of women (only about 1 in 300 pregnancies), but it affects enough women that it’s a topic worth discussing.
What’s the difference between this plain old morning sickness? The difference between mild and moderate morning sickness is just the degree of which you have it. The difference between moderate morning sickness and hyperemesis gravidarum is quite pronounced.
With hyperemesis gravidarum, nausea is a persistent force; it’s like you are in a constant state of nausea. Every little smell causes you to become nauseated. Even seemingly harmless scents seem to set your nausea on full blast.
With this condition, vomiting is extremely severe. It can sometimes feel like the vomiting won’t ever stop. It gets so bad that you aren’t able to keep and food or fluids down.
That’s where hyperemesis gravidarum becomes dangerous: dehydration. All of that vomiting causes dehydration, which carries with the symptoms like headaches, fainting, decreased urine output, and confusion.
This isn’t like typical morning sickness that might start four to six weeks into your pregnancy and end around the beginning of your second trimester. Hyperemesis gravidarum begins early and like to stick around longer than the second trimester. Sometimes women continue to be sick up until the birth of their child.
The cause is believed to be a pregnant woman’s body reacting to the surge in hormones, although there is not definitive proof.
There are treatments for typical morning sickness that a woman diagnosed with this condition might try, like herbs, acupressure, and acupuncture. Chances are, a woman will not find much relief because her symptoms are so severe.
In those cases where relief isn’t found using typical methods, and if the hyperemesis gravidarum is severe enough, she may need to be hospitalized. When this happens, she will probably receive intravenous fluids and potentially tube feedings.
Because restoring fluids, nutrition, electrolytes, and vitamins is important for a mother, as well as her unborn child, she must get to her doctor as soon as possible for a diagnosis and treatment if hyperemesis gravidarum is suspected.
