Can the whole30 help with severe morning sickness?

[RachCof]

Has anyone had serve morning sickness with previous pregnancies and then had a pregnancy while on the whole 30 to compare??

Just wondering, not expecting though when I had my first I had serve, sever morning - all day sickness.

[Munkers]

No personal experience on this issue, but it is definitely possible. B6 has been shown to help decrease morning sickness and there are some theories floating around the medical community that magnesium may also help. Good nutrition via Whole30 eating would give you increased amounts of both of those nutrients.

[Hannlib]

No,but I was eating primally (so paleo plus full fat dairy basically) when I got pregnant with dd2. I felt fine till about 6/7 weeks when the food aversions kicked in. And kicked in. And kicked in some more. Massive aversions to meat, eggs and vegetables. Useful. I desperately wanted to eat primally all pregnancy as I felt I was the healthiest I'd ever been. But the food aversions and associated nausea meant I could only stomach beige and brown foods. My eldest daughter actually wooped with delight when I cooked some broccoli at about 8 months. I didn't eat it.

I don't know why my body rejected all the most nutrient dense foods in the world to favour crackers and toast, just at the point that it needed health and nurturing. But it did. Blurgh. I have massive respect for anyone who eats paleo never mind w30 while pregnant.

[Noelle]

I didn't do a Whole30 while pregnant, but I'm sure it would have improved my nausea situation.

 

The first time, I lived on refined carbohydrates, because that's all (I thought) I could choke down: pasta, bread, pretzels (so many pretzels...). I had all-day "morning sickness" well into my second trimester. With my second baby, I found that if I could force myself to eat some protein, I felt worlds better. It really helped if someone else cooked and brought the food to me, so I didn't have to touch or prepare it, just eat it. Scrambled eggs and roast turkey breast were my go-to foods in those early weeks—and my nausea eased up around 12 weeks.

[AmyS]

Here's what Melissa Hartwig says about this issue: http://whole9life.com/2013/01/pregnancy-and-food-aversions/

[TrayS]

I've been really curious about others' experiences with this too. When I got pregnant last year I was still eating mostly paleo but had let wine creep back in, as well as other off-plan foods here and there. So I wasn't being super strict. I fully intended to eat as healthy as possible during my pregnancy... but then yeah, week 6 hit, and I found myself wandering around Trader Joe's for an hour staring at all the food, evaluating whether I could picture eating it without throwing up. All I wanted was pizza and orange juice. One day I went to my sister's house and she had made pork and sweet potatoes. Normally, I LOVE sweet potatoes. But that day I took one bite, turned around and walked out the door, got back in my car and drove to a sandwich shop and bought the meatball sub I'd been thinking about since I woke up that morning.

 

Pregnancy is a different animal. I found the food aversions to be humbling and much more forceful than anything I'd imagined. Melissa's description of them in the article Amy links above is spot on. So, now that I'm TTC again (I miscarried at 13 weeks), I'm hoping that if I were to conceive, say, while I'm actually on a Whole30, that with the improvement in hormones and nutrient intake the food aversions might not be so strong... especially if I can manage to choke down some protein (thanks Noelle for that advice!)

[MrsStick]

I haven't had severe morning sickness; mine has been pretty tame. But the first time an aversion hit me it was like getting a swift kick in the stomach as I tried to eat what had sounded good only two minutes earlier as I was putting it on my plate. Goodbye, thyme braised short ribs on top of warm brussel sprout slaw...I just gave my plate to my husband and choked down the few things that sounded good - a little strawberry Greek yogurt, plain 3-ingredient potato chips, and a GF peanut butter cookie with peanut butter on top.

 

I'm not a vegetarian but the way I'm having to eat right now I almost feel like I am. Friday night I was able to eat two hard-boiled eggs with some sweet potato fries - score there on healthy protein and fats - but overall most of my diet is non-protein because I can't take much meat. All I want personally is salty and/or starchy carbs, but NOT SWEET. I can eat the heck out of some french fries but will turn down a gluten-free Glutino oreo-style cookie (to my husband's shock) because the thought of that much sweet just...nope.

 

I'm currently working my way through a cold and even the cough drops are making me feel queasy because they're sweet and leave their taste in my mouth and just...nope. I'm coping with a lot of saline nose spray to keep the post-nasal drip to a minimum to help with the coughing because of the scarcity of pregnancy-safe medications.

[RachCof]

Thank you all for your replies! Food aversions are a rough thing, I was on Zofran my last pregnancy for a couple months just to be able to get anything down, I stayed gluten free during the whole pregnancy. I was just hoping that with even more stable blood sugar from the whole30 the morning sickness is lessened. :/

Munkers - I've read that also and actually was taking magnesium to build up my stores but have let it go for these 30 days because it also had stevia in it.

I think the Food Reagade was the one who mentioned taking magnesium. She said to apply it topically.

TrayS I'm sorry about your miscarriage. Praying all is balanced and you have healthy pragancies to come!

[BeantownDiva715]

Following this as we are TTC

[baltomom86]

I am 7 weeks and actually I have had NO symptoms. And this is my third so I know how hard it cam be. My main suspecion of my pregnancy was my missed period and I am waking up at night to pee.

Also when I did W30 I had no cramping during my period.

[MrsStick]

I am 7 weeks and actually I have had NO symptoms. And this is my third so I know how hard it cam be. My main suspecion of my pregnancy was my missed period and I am waking up at night to pee.

 

YES! Two days before I could test I woke up in the middle of the night to pee and then had trouble getting back to sleep because I was hungry. When that happened two nights in a row I got suspicious and tested...and it was positive!

[littleg]

I'm 7w and a few days.  If I saw this post a week ago I would have said "yes!  paleo/W30 helps because I'm FINE!!".

 

Yesterday I ate rice pasta with ricotta for breakfast.  It was my lunch that was packed for work but it was the only thing that sounded good enough to eat.  So I made another serving of pasta and packed it up again and ate the same thing for lunch  I did add some wilted spinach to the second version of the lunch!  Dinner was 2 apples and a grapefruit.  

 

Foods that sound appealing literally change over the span of a few minutes.  I was making homemade red sauce to eat on the pasta for lunch (it was a vegetable!) and within the time it had been cooked I just couldn't stand the thought of eating it.  

 

I don't feel really nauseous - like 2/10 nausea - but NOTHING sounds good.  Kombucha doesn't sound good.  And that is crazy.  I was really hoping to eat as well as I could during this pregnancy since it wasn't easy getting to this point and so much of the literature points to SO.MANY things down the road of a little human being related to maternal diet during pregnancy but now I'm not sure I'll be able to do it.  

 

I haven't been taking a prenatal (except methylated folate) because up until this point I was eating well enough that I was getting in what I needed (I was eating an ounce of liver each morning for goodness sakes!) but over the last 3 days thats all stopped.  I've heard that B6 can help with nausea so I may go out and buy a prenatal and see if it helps a little so that I can go back to eating a bit better.

[MrsStick]

Kombucha was out for me for a while too, but once I hit my 2nd trimester it was back in. Keep up hope! The first trimester will end and you will end up eating at least similarly to your previous diet, if not everything. Tomato-based sauces right now are giving me heartburn (I'm 22 weeks) so those are out but the occasional fresh tomato on something is okay. On my recent trip to Cambodia I was quite impressed with my stomach's willingness to try foods...and had more fish than I've had in a while. That fish curry for lunch my first day was divine...and I usually don't even like curry spices!

 

So...eat what you need to so you can get through this, trying to stay as healthy as possible within your own diet, and you can fine tune it once you can eat food again. Your baby will be fine. Once you start feeling the kicks you'll actually start learning what baby likes to eat (mine always gets active about an hour and a half after a meal) and know that you're exposing him or her to all kinds of flavors. Until then, don't starve yourself!