So Your Misses Got Hyperemesis (Gravidarum)

Most women gain weight during pregnancy, and it takes them some time to return to their normal weight. During our pregnancy, my wife lost 13 pounds (6 kilograms). How did it happen? You guessed right. Hyperemesis gravidarum.

We found out my wife was pregnant at the beginning of the fifth week. On that very day, the vomiting and nausea began, escalating rapidly. At this point, we thought it was just regular morning sickness. Perhaps a bit more severe than the average, but nothing out of the ordinary. We didn’t know that something like hyperemesis gravidarum existed.

Two weeks passed. The intensity of the vomiting began to take its toll on both of us. I shared my feelings with one of my friends, a parent himself to three children. I asked him if morning sickness was supposed to be this tough.

“Hang in there, it’s temporary,” my friend encouraged me, “in a few weeks, you’ll reach the second trimester. That’s thebest period. Just hearty meals and sex.”

He continued, recounting how his wife would wake him up in the middle of the night, craving ice cream, devour it, and then immediately move on to devour him. And how during breakfasts, he would prepare towering sandwiches and shakes for both of them, which she also devoured, and then devoured him.

Ah, bad meals and sex… I really looked forward to the second trimester! But as you probably understood, our second trimester looked entirely different.

Food can be a sensitive subject for any pregnant woman, even without hyperemesis gravidarum. The senses of smell and taste change. Foods that were loved before pregnancy become unbearable. And of course, morning sickness turns every meal into a mystery, not knowing if it will stay in the stomach or not.

With HG, dealing with food is much harder than regular pregnancy. The senses sharpen extremely, every minor scent intensifies nausea and may lead to long, painful vomiting. Many women with hyperemesis are at risk of malnutrition since most things that eat won’t stay in their stomach.

Dealing with food became a daily struggle for us. Almost everything my wife ate found its way out shortly afterward. We had to find a new approach to eating: to understand which foods work for her, and equally important – to understand how to eat them.

I’ll start specifically with how to eat during hyperemesis, as understanding how to eat will make the choice of what to eat much easier