Emetophobia and Pregnancy: Part Two

My whole life I remember thinking that all pregnant women vomit. It was an inevitable part of life, then in college during my Philosophy of Women class a professor told us that she never got sick once when she was pregnant with her daughter. This news changed my life.

Up until then I had vowed never to have kids, I was going to adopt. Why? Because I have emetophobia. Simply put emetophobia is the fear of vomiting.

This instructor had a theory that green vegetables caused vomiting during pregnancy. I don’t know why, or what she thought was in them that made a pregnant women sick, but she said that by avoiding green vegetables she avoided morning sickness. For some reason I never forgot this piece of information.

I would hear things throughout the year from other people like always keep saltines next to your bed. One women swore by ginger-root every morning. I gathered all of this information and kept a mental checklist for the next ten years.

My second step in preparing myself for pregnancy was to find out what I could and could not take while I was pregnant. I had so many anti-emetics at home, but which ones would be safe during pregnancy. Throughout the years my therapist used to laugh at the fact that I carried around an arsenal of medications, ginger root, compazine, and cola syrup. The trick was to find out which ones were safe during my pregnancy.

I researched normal cures for morning sickness and investigated a few alternative medicines. I found that I could hang on to my old stand byes, ginger-root and cola syrup, but the compazine would have to go.

I found some new herbal alternatives to try out. One thing I found that was safe during pregnancy and promised to provide relief was red raspberry leaf. Red Raspberry Leaf is found in a lot of pregnancy support teas because it is the most widely known herbal nutrient for uterine health, what you will find out if you dig a little deeper is that it does in fact help nausea. I would drink a glass whenever feeling a little off, and it worked wonders.

After doing all of my research I also wanted to ask my doctor what he recommends to prevent nausea and vomiting. To my surprise he recommended drinking Lemonade. He said that a lot of nausea can be caused due to dehydration, and something in the lemonade can in fact settle the stomach.

The fact that a sour beverage would cure morning-sickness made sense when my research on the subject turned up a product called preggie pops that also helped nausea. Preggie pops and preggie pop drops helped my nausea with their blend of essential oils and slightly sour taste.

When I finally did become pregnant I was scared, but I was prepared. I had emetophobia, but I had properly researched everything safe effective morning sickness cures and was ready to safely and securely concur my morning sickness without any fear of harming my unborn child. I am proud to say that by using the tricks I learned through my research I survived a healthy and happy pregnancy, something I thought would be impossible for someone with emetophobia a few years back.

By Robin Ross of livingwithemetophobia.blogspot.com