What Is Morning Sickness?

You’re pregnant (yay!) and preparing for the next 40 weeks—what’s first? Maybe call the family, let them know the good news. Walk around each day on a little cloud thinking about names, and about the future astronaut or singer or writer growing inside you. After a week or so, the cloud and happiness are still there, but reality gets added to the mix, so you start to plan. You walk around the house, mentally rearranging furniture and people. Clothing is inspected and rated on stretchiness. A healthier diet is a must, but a compromise is reached—you’re keeping the double cheeseburgers and ditching the pepperoni. Now comes the part that no one plans for but almost everyone experiences: morning sickness. Morning sickness is the phrase used to describe the nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, or the NVP. It’s also called nausea gravidarum. If it’s really bad, it’s called hyperemesis gravidarum. The Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, suffered from this severe form of morning sickness during both of her pregnancies. Scientists aren’t certain why women have morning sickness when pregnant, but they think it has to do with the hormone levels changing during pregnancy. The mechanics of the nausea and vomiting have to do with the vagus nerve, also called the wandering nerve. It’s a long nerve that’s actually two stems dangling from the cerebellum and the brainstem and running all the way to the abdomen. It has offshoots and tendrils that wander around our organs and end up in the oddest places. The vagus nerve is always talking to the brain, telling it what’s going on with the body. When you get into the NVP loop (nausea and vomiting during pregnancy) it’s the vagus nerve sending signals to the vomiting center of the brain. The brain says OK, and before you know it, you’re vomiting. There are lots of things to try when dealing with morning sickness. For instance, avoid foods that trigger the NVP response and gets lots of fresh air. Certain smells may make you turn green, so try to avoid those. Some say ginger, as in ginger tea or cookies or biscuits may help. As your partner in the fight against morning sickness, we’ve developed ReliefBand™, which is worn on the wrist, and through regulated stimulation of certain nerves, blocks those signals from the vagus nerve to the vomiting center of the brain. The ReliefBand™ is cleared by the FDA as an over-the-counter product to be used for the relief of mild to moderate nausea and vomiting associated with pregnancy. Talk with your doctor about morning sickness and visit us at http://shop.reliefband.com.   Image courtesy of: Anna Gutermuth

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Gifts For Mom-To-Be.

It’s fun to shop for that special mom-to-be in your life. Here are some ideas to get you started, and we’d love to hear your wonderfully creative ideas in the comments. Dawn Dais wrote a book called The *&^% No One Tells You: A Guide To Surviving Your Baby’s First Year. Sounds cute, and we all know there’s a lot of grossness the first year or two that no one talks about. Conversations in homes with new babies go something like this: Is that supposed to be that color? I don’t think that belongs there. Where did that come from? (Should be a fun read!) Give a Kiva Card! Kiva is a nonprofit that connects loaners to borrowers. You choose whom you’d like to make a small loan to, say a mom who wants to increase her family’s goat herd. She gets the money, buys five more goats, then pays you back. You take that money and find someone else to fund, and the story repeats. You can stop loaning money whenever you want. It’s a meaningful way to help alleviate poverty, one person at a time. It’s a gift from the heart. An iTunes gift card will fill a phone or tablet with loads of practical and cool apps, such as What to Expect’s Pregnancy & Baby, BabyCenter’s My Pregnancy Today, or BabyBump’s Pregnancy Pro. There are also baby monitor apps and just oodles of others that will make the new mom very happy. If there’s a project that you know the mom-to-be wants to get done around the house, get a bunch of her friends together and go over one weekend to get it done! Everybody’s busy with work and life. Sometimes, big projects can be daunting, and a little help from our friends turns out to be a big deal. Most pregnant women will experience morning sickness. The ReliefBand helps quell nausea and vomiting. Give her one, and she’ll be saying thanks every day for weeks or quite possibly months! Never know how long morning sickness will hang around. Let’s not forget dad-to-be. Get him a waterproof camera and he’ll capture pictures of pregnant mom-to-be splashing in the pool, and later, baby’s first bath! There are loads of waterproof cameras of all shapes and price points, so take your time shopping on this one. Fair warning! We haven’t tried specific products out, but they look fun, don’t they? What gifts have you received that you’ve truly enjoyed? Share in the comments, we all want to hear.

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