What does pregnancy throw up look like

Table of Contents Show

Things you can try yourself
Anti-sickness medicine
What causes morning sickness?
What does morning sickness feel like?
Is morning sickness a good sign?
When is morning sickness the worst?
Is there anything you can do about morning sickness?
Eat bland foods
Have small, frequent meals
Eat and drink separately
Stick with foods that sound good to you
Keep a food journal
Try ginger
Take some vitamin B6
Consider taking a prescription

Nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, often known as morning sickness, is very common in early pregnancy.

It can affect you at any time of the day or night or you may feel sick all day long.

Morning sickness is unpleasant, and can significantly affect your day-to-day life. But it usually clears up by weeks 16 to 20 of your pregnancy and does not put your baby at any increased risk.

There is a chance of developing a severe form of pregnancy sickness called hyperemesis gravidarum. This can be serious, and there's a chance you may not get enough fluids in your body (dehydration) or not get enough nutrients from your diet (malnourishment). You may need specialist treatment, sometimes in hospital.

Sometimes urinary tract infections (UTIs) can also cause nausea and vomiting. A UTI usually affects the bladder, but can spread to the kidneys.

you're vomiting and:

have very dark-coloured urine or have not had a pee in more than 8 hours
are unable to keep food or fluids down for 24 hours
feel severely weak, dizzy or faint when standing up
have tummy (abdominal) pain
have a high temperature
vomit blood
have lost weight

If you're well, it's really important you go to all your appointments and scans for the health of you and your baby.

If you're pregnant, hospitals and clinics are making sure it's safe for you to go to appointments.

If you get symptoms of COVID-19, or you're unwell with something other than COVID-19, speak to your midwife or maternity team. They will advise you what to do.

Find out more about pregnancy and COVID-19

Unfortunately, there's no hard and fast treatment that will work for everyone’s morning sickness. Every pregnancy will be different.

But there are some changes you can make to your diet and daily life to try to ease the symptoms.

If these do not work for you or you're having more severe symptoms, your doctor or midwife might recommend medicine.

Things you can try yourself

If your morning sickness is not too bad, your GP or midwife will initially recommend you try some lifestyle changes:

get plenty of rest (tiredness can make nausea worse)
avoid foods or smells that make you feel sick
eat something like dry toast or a plain biscuit before you get out of bed
eat small, frequent meals of plain foods that are high in carbohydrate and low in fat (such as bread, rice, crackers and pasta)
eat cold foods rather than hot ones if the smell of hot meals makes you feel sick
drink plenty of fluids, such as water (sipping them little and often may help prevent vomiting)
eat foods or drinks containing ginger – there's some evidence ginger may help reduce nausea and vomiting (check with your pharmacist before taking ginger supplements during pregnancy)
try acupressure – there's some evidence that putting pressure on your wrist, using a special band or bracelet on your forearm, may help relieve the symptoms

Find out more about vitamins and supplements in pregnancy

Anti-sickness medicine

If your nausea and vomiting is severe and does not improve after trying the above lifestyle changes, your GP may recommend a short-term course of an anti-sickness medicine, called an antiemetic, that's safe to use in pregnancy.

Often this will be a type of antihistamine, which are usually used to treat allergies but also work as medicines to stop sickness (antiemetic).

Antiemetics will usually be given as tablets for you to swallow.

But if you cannot keep these down, your doctor may suggest an injection or a type of medicine that's inserted into your bottom (suppository).

See your GP if you'd like to talk about getting anti-sickness medication.

It's thought hormonal changes in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy are probably one of the causes of morning sickness.

But you may be more at risk of it if:

you're having twins or more
you had severe sickness and vomiting in a previous pregnancy
you tend to get motion sickness (for example, car sick)
you have a history of migraine headaches
morning sickness runs in the family
you used to feel sick when taking contraceptives containing oestrogen
it's your first pregnancy
you're obese (your BMI is 30 or more)
you're experiencing stress

Visit the pregnancy sickness support site for tips for you and your partner on dealing with morning sickness.

Find maternity services near you

In this video, a midwife gives advice on how to deal with morning sickness during your pregnancy.

Page last reviewed: 13 April 2021
Next review due: 13 April 2024

You know what they never taught us about in sex ed? Morning sickness. And as someone who wants to have kids one day, I would like some answers.

Sure, I sort of know what it is (there's puking involved, yes?), but why does morning sickness happen? Does random nausea mean you might be pregnant? Is there any way to prevent morning sickness (🙏)? These are the questions that keep me up at night.

And whether you're currently pregnant or think you might want to be eventually, I'm gonna go ahead and bet you have some of the same Qs. Don't worry, I'm here to help help. But as a person with no medical degree who's never experienced morning sickness herself, here's where I call in backup (aka, four ob-gyns).

First, let's define morning sickness. "Many women, I can't say all women, but many women get nauseous during pregnancy," explains Mary Jane Minkin, MD, clinical professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the Yale University School of Medicine. "It's called morning sickness because many people experience nausea and vomiting in the morning, however, there are many women who experience these symptoms throughout the day," adds Heather Irobunda, MD, an ob-gyn based in Queens, New York.

Ok, now that we've got the basics down (morning sickness = nausea and vomiting during pregnancy and it doesn't just happen in the morning) let's get down to the nitty gritty of why it happens, what it feels like, and what you can do about it.

Below, find literally everything you could ever want to know about morning sickness.

What causes morning sickness?

Short answer: Experts don't totally know. "No one really knows the exact mechanism of nausea, but we do think that it's partly because of the hormonal changes—mostly beta human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), which is the baby hormone that's produced in very high amounts," says Sherry A. Ross, MD, women's health expert and author of She-ology and She-ology, the She-quel: Let's Continue the Conversation. Doctors think higher levels of hormone are responsible for morning sickness because women who have higher levels of hCG, like those who are pregnant with twins, tend to experience more nausea.

It could also have to do with the increased production of the hormone progesterone, says Dr. Irobunda. "The extra progesterone may cause your gastrointestinal (GI) tract to slow down, causing food to sit in your stomach longer than normal which can give you a nauseous feeling," she says.

As for why morning sickness usually happens in the morning, experts think it's because some women's symptoms worsen when they have an empty stomach, Dr. Irobunda says. That's why some docs recommend patients with morning sickness eat something small before getting out of bed, adds Dr. Ross.

What does morning sickness feel like?

Welp, it kinda sucks. It ranges from a mild queasy feeling to the more extreme kind of nausea that you feel when you have the stomach bug, says Dr. Minkin. If you're in the unlucky group, it can be "10 to 12 weeks of feeling exhausted and miserable from being on the verge of throwing up 24/7," says Dr. Ross. Ugh.

Either way, you'll probably be more sensitive to smells that have never bothered you before. According to Dr. Ross, everything from the smell of coffee brewing in the morning to your partner's body wash can send you running to the toilet. Yikes.

Is morning sickness a good sign?

It definitely can be! Dr. Ross tells her patients that morning sickness is a great first sign of pregnancy. "When people have nausea I'm always like 'ah, I'm so happy for you' because it's a good sign that things are going in the right direction," she says. In other words, it means your body is producing the hormones it should be.

But don't freak if you don't have it. If you're not nauseous, it doesn't necessarily mean that anything is wrong, says Dr. Minkin. It just means you're lucky.

And if you have random nausea, it doesn't automatically mean you're pregnant. If you think you might be, pick up a First Response home pregnancy test kit, says Dr. Minkin. She recommends this one because it's most accurate and can pick up on tiny levels of hCG before you even miss your period.

When is morning sickness the worst?

Good news: Morning sickness doesn't last through the entire nine months of pregnancy (phew). In fact, it tends to be the worst during the first eight weeks, says Dr. Ross. It should stop by the end of the first trimester, so around 13 weeks.

But, FWIW, some women do experience morning sickness all the way until 20 weeks, or halfway through the pregnancy, says Dr. Minkin. And in some super rare cases, it can last throughout the whole pregnancy, says Jackie Walters, MD, an Atlanta-based ob-gyn and author of The Queen V: Everything You Need to Know About Sex, Intimacy and Down There Care. In that case, you'll definitely want to talk to your gyno about ways to manage it. Speaking of which...

Is there anything you can do about morning sickness?

Yup. Thankfully there are a ton of ways to relieve morning sickness. From eating strategies to natural remedies to prescriptions, here's what the experts recommend.

Eat bland foods

Stick to the BRAT diet (that's bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast), suggests Dr. Ross. These foods and other blah, easy-to-digest foods like crackers and clear soups are less likely to upset your stomach and trigger morning sickness symptoms.

Have small, frequent meals

As I mentioned earlier, morning sickness can be worst when you have an empty stomach. By eating small, frequent meals, you'll always have a little something in your stomach so the whole empty stomach thing never comes into play. Plus, it's easier on the digestive system, says Dr. Irobunda.

Eat and drink separately

If you find that sipping on a bev while you're eating makes you feel queasy, try eating and drinking separately, says Dr. Irobunda. Doctors aren't totally sure why it works, but it seems to help.

Stick with foods that sound good to you

Craving chocolate cake? Eat it for three meals a day if you want. It's way more important to focus on getting enough calories in vs. nutrition during this time says Dr. Minkin. Your prenatal vitamin will ensure that the baby is getting the right nutrients, so just focus on eating meals that sound good to you.

Keep a food journal

It helps to learn what foods and smells agree with you—and which ones definitely don't. Keep a notebook in your kitchen or purse and jot down what makes you feel like you're gonna hurl so that you can avoid those things accordingly, suggests Dr. Ross.

Try ginger

Ginger is thought to help by relaxing the GI muscles associated with morning sickness, explains Dr. Ross. You can drink it in a tea, pop a ginger capsule, suck on a ginger lozenge, sip a non-alcoholic ginger beer, the world is your oyster.

Take some vitamin B6

Taking 25 milligrams of vitamin B6 three times a day is a game-changer for some women, says Dr. Ross. This is another case where gynos aren't really sure why it works, they just see clear results. If taking it orally doesn't help, you can also ask your ob-gyn about getting a dose of vitamin B6 through an IV once or twice a week, says Dr. Minkin. She's had patients swear by it.

Consider taking a prescription

If you've tried all of the remedies above and you're still puking your guts out, talk to your doctor. There are prescription medications, like the mega popular Diclegis—which is a combination of vitamin B6 and an antihistamine—that can help you feel better, says Dr. Minkin.