So Your Misses Got Hyperemesis (Gravidarum)
Chapter 5: Drinking With Hyperemesis Gravidarum
Part 2: How to Drink with Hyperemesis? 3 Guiding Principles
Here are the 3 most important principles we discovered about how to drink with hyperemesis gravidarum:
First Principle For Drinking with HG: Thicker is Better
This was one of our most important discoveries throughout the hyperemesis period. The clearer the liquid, the quicker my wife’s body rejected it with severe vomiting. This means that out of all beverages, plain water was the hardest for my wife to drink (to be precise, she couldn’t drink it at all).
It was very confusing. We are used to drinking water after vomiting or when experiencing heartburn… and that’s what she initially did, not realizing it was worsening the nausea and vomiting.
My wife understood the importance of texture around week 7 or 8, about two weeks after HG entered our lives. At that point, she couldn’t drink water at all, so she switched to tea with lots of sugar, which made the liquid a bit thicker. This helped her drink a bit. Still, within a few days, the hyperemesis prevented her from drinking tea, as if it was saying, “No, you don’t!” and she started vomiting the tea as well.
However, thanks to the experience with tea, we discovered that thicker drinks worked better with her hyperemesis, and we started exploring other beverages with a thick texture. By the way, with tea, my wife began dipping biscuits and eating them along with the absorbed liquid. This worked for a few days until, again, the hyperemesis caught on to our trick, and she started vomiting that too.
Anyway, since our experience with tea, we focused on finding thicker beverages. Some of these you will see in the following part – What to Drink with Hyperemesis Gravidarum.
Second Principle For Drinking with HG: Tiny Sips with an Instrument
Here’s something that won’t surprise you: the bigger the sip, the harder the expected vomiting. We also discovered this through trial and error.
In the first days of hyperemesis, my wife complained she couldn’t drink. I admit that at first, I didn’t understand what she meant and urged her to drink more. I couldn’t understand how my pregnant wife wasn’t taking care of herself and the baby. I also admit that I thought my wife was exaggerating or not willing to make an effort to overcome what I then believed was normal morning sickness.
It was one of my wife’s sisters, who suffered from severe morning sickness during her pregnancies, who helped me understand the complexity of the situation. She didn’t have hyperemesis, but her nausea was severe enough for her to teach me something important.
My wife’s sister explained that many pregnant women find it hard to drink because of nausea and that my wife wasn’t being spoiled or lazy—she was truly suffering. She also advised us to try drinking in small sips using a straw or spoon.
We followed this advice, and it proved effective. Tiny sips using some drinking instrument went down better than sips directly from the cup. Here are the instruments that helped us:
- We bought my wife drinking straws, like those used in smoothies.
- We placed a spoon or teaspoon next to her, and she drank with them.
- A woman we spoke to who also suffered from hyperemesis said that what helped her were bottles with sports caps, which allow small squirts of water with a squeeze.
- One of the nurses gave us small syringes with a 5 ml capacity. She recommended my wife drip water under her tongue and let it absorb.
Throughout the day, I encouraged my wife to take a tiny sip every 10-15 minutes. She couldn’t always do it, and often what I thought was encouragement mainly caused her frustration… but it worked. From a situation where my wife couldn’t drink anything, she managed to get some fluids into her body.
Try it yourselves. Find something that helps to drink in tiny amounts and encourage your wife to drink from it every 10-15 minutes. Throughout the day, these sips add up to a significant amount of fluids.
Third Principle For Drinking with HG: Encourage Your Wife to Listen to Her Body… and Listen Along with Her
In the previous chapter focusing on eating with hyperemesis gravidarum, I mentioned that encouraging your wife to listen to her body (and listening along with her) is probably the most important thing regarding eating with hyperemesis. The same is true for drinking with hyperemesis gravidarum.
As much as I try to be a supportive husband, I don’t always understand everything my wife experiences or feels. Like many people around us, I didn’t initially grasp what we were dealing with and that my wife truly couldn’t drink. Unfortunately, my encouragement, especially in the early weeks when we were still learning what we were up against, mainly added pressure on my wife.
But my wife is the smartest person I know. She listened to her body and understood what helps her to get fluids into her body. Equally important, when she could no longer get fluids in, she managed to recognize it and learned to ask for medical help—which we will discuss in the next chapter focusing on IV fluids.
In hindsight, I am grateful for all the times my wife didn’t listen to me but listened to her body. So, if I had to recommend one thing for you to focus on, it would be to encourage your wife to listen to her body, understand what sensations arise when she drinks, discover which textures go down better than others, which instruments help her drink more, and of course, which drinks suit her.
From a broader perspective, an experience like hyperemesis can only be successfully navigated if the woman understands what works for her. It’s essentially an invitation to a journey of self-discovery for her.
A miserable journey. But still a journey with insights and value.
Later, we will elaborate on the good things hyperemesis can bring. For now, let’s move on to the next chapter, where we will focus on the question of what to drink with hyperemesis?