So Your Misses Got Hyperemesis (Gravidarum)
Chapter 4: How to Eat with Hyperemesis Gravidarum: The 3 Main Principles
Part 2: How to Eat with Hyperemesis Gravidarum: The 3 Main Principles
There are 3 main principles of how to eat with hyperemesis gravidarum that I wholeheartedly recommend.
1st Principle: Something must be in the stomach at all times
When the stomach is empty, nausea and vomiting intensify significantly. But if the stomach is busy digesting something, the nausea is more tolerable.
After understanding this principle, we found simple ways to apply it. For example, the first thing I would do when waking up was to prepare breakfast for my wife (I’ll tell you about it soon, in Part 5: “What to Eat With Hyperemesis Gravidarum” ). And if we were going somewhere (mostly to the clinic or hospital), we always took food that would last for a few hours outside the house.
Even when my wife’s water broke before labor (I’ll also tell about that later), I knew how important it would be for her to have food in her stomach, and within minutes I prepared food for her that she could eat so she would have it at the hospital.
I highly recommend you do the same. As the partner, try to be aware of the time that passes between your wife’s meals and encourage her to eat before the food digests and the nausea intensifies.
Another thing that helped us with always having some food in my wife’s stomach: we set a timer to go off every two hours. When the timer went off, I would prepare a small snack or meal for my wife and set the timer again for two hours.
Keeping something in the stomach at all times with HG is harder than it may seem. My wife couldn’t eat every time, and we couldn’t always stick with this routine all day long. But when we succeeded, it was a good day for her, with few vomiting episodes and relatively mild nausea. And the days when my wife didn’t eat enough were very difficult. She vomited a lot, she was weak, she was in pain, and very tired.
So pay attention to the clock, and if you’re going out for a few hours don’t be embarrassed to take snacks and even complete meals in food containers with you
2nd Principle: Small Meals
Plan the day with 6-7 small meals based on foods your wife can eat, as opposed to 3 large meals most of us are accustomed to.
You’ll likely come to this realization relatively early on, simply because your wife won’t be able to eat full meals like before pregnancy.
Still, this is an important principle, and early understanding of it will help you contain the hyperemesis sooner – but it requires adaptation on your part, both in terms of awareness and expectations in the home and kitchen.
3rd Principle: Encourage Your Wife to Listen to Her Body... and Listen with Her
This is perhaps the most important principle when it comes to eating with hyperemesis that I can recommend.
Every woman has her own dietary preferences, and each woman experiences hyperemesis in a different way and intensity from other women. Therefore, even if everyone gives you advice, or if you come across interesting ideas in any guidebook (yes, including this one) – your task as a family is to understand what’s best for you.
So, if you take one thing from this HG guidebook, take this principle of listening to your wife’s body, and discovering what’s best specifically for her and no one else.
Many people will give you advice in the coming months. Some of it will be wonderful advice, but most of it will be irrelevant. For your wife to know what’s right for her, she needs to learn to listen to her body, to understand how to meet its needs, to figure out what and when she can eat – and when she should stop.
Ultimately, in hyperemesis, your way is the right way, just like in all other important things in life.
Now, after understanding how to eat with hyperemesis, let’s move on to the main course – what can you eat with hyperemesis