I am 9.5 weeks :) and have been experiencing morning sickness for about 5 weeks now. I feel averted to all my once favorite foods that I could eat to support my healthy diet: salads, vegetables, meat, chicken, light soups, any broth, high-fiber bread, mushrooms, eggs, cheese, milk, cottage cheese, nuts, teas... just to name a few. All I can eat now is citruses (mandarins, mango), pasta (once very rare in my diet) and some kinds of rice - and all of this is high-carb food with no fiber... It's getting a little frustrating. I try different types of food, and it just doesn't smell or taste right.
I do manage to eat some low-fat ricotta cheese in the morning and brie during the day. Cured salmon and lox taste good for me. I also force myself to eat some multigrain sprouted tortillas from TJ. Miso soup is very pleasant, but don't seem to be able to find the same type of miso paste in the stores as the one I tried at a sushi restaurant.
Did anyone have the same experience with food aversions? I would appreciate if you could share your stories about morning sickness and how you dealt with it.
I had major food aversions in my first trimester. I could eat very little apart from maybe spaghetti bolognese, cheese sandwiches and grapefruit. I just focused on getting the carbs in. That's really the most important thing at this stage. Get the carbs in for the energy and to avoid ketones in the urine. Take your pre-natal vitimins and as soon as you start feeling better you can be more active in eating a healthy diet. I ate high fiber carbs all of the time. I ate a lot of whole wheat toast and a lot of whole wheat saltine crackers-this helped to keep the nausea at bay also. Really don't worry about a balanced diet right now-your baby will be fine and you can make up for it later in the pregnancy. Remember to eat lots of protein as soon as the aversions reduce :)
Thank you for the advice and support Sharon! Spaghetti do sound good! :) Did you experience high BG occasionally? Since I am eating all these unusual carbs, I sometimes underestimate my insulin, since I am afraid to get too low afterwards...
I definitely struggled with some highs at the beginning. At this point your body is going through crazy changes so it's not surprising that you might have some random highs and even some lows. I found that I needed to eat a little every hour-to avoid nausea and to keep my carbs up-I could only eat a little at a time. I think eating little consistently helps a lot. Don't be afraid of insulin-I worked with my endo on getting my insulin to carb ratio good and stuck with that. I used the citrus fruits and glucose tablets to deal with lows-just keep those handy-and fruit is good for you and the baby so it's a great way to deal with lows while pregnant if you can eat them. Even non diabetic women can have gnarly BG levels (even those without gestational diabetes) so DO NOT beat yourself up over them. You'll be fine :)
i had awful nausea from about week 6-10 - it is really tough! I definitely was craving high carb stuff like pizza, pasta...you know, all the stuff we are not supposed to be eating!
I definitely ate more carbs at this time, and just took my insulin like crazy and tested, tested, tested to knock down any high blood sugar readings asap when they happened.
I found that getting something - ANYTHING - in my stomach helped alot. So if the only thing that sounded good was spaghetti, I would let myself eat a little bit. Once that settled in my stomach, I would be a lot more likely to be able to eat healthier foods with protein and fiber, and lower in bad carbs. One quarter of a bagel, toasted with cream cheese, although not ideal for the diabetes, would help me go on to eat a much healthier rest of breakfast, like greek yogurt with fruit or something like that.
Also - english muffin pizzas!!! Our grocery store has a great generic whole wheat english muffin that's only 17 net carbs, I would load those up with a little sauce, veggies and tons of cheese and broil in the toaster oven. Almost as good as the real thing. :)
It's good to know I'm not alone in this :) I want to go back to my veggies, meats and healthy carbs so bad! Hopefully, it'll go away soon. Thank you Kate!
I still can't eat my once beloved zucchini! I think I am back to eating everything else that I enjoyed pre-pregnancy, but zucchini is still kind of funky to me.
I would say to eat what you can at this point and watch your bgs as much as possible. If you are going to under shoot the insulin, just watch for the postprandial spikes and react quickly to ensure you don't stay high too long.
The good news is that this will pass and you will likely enjoy all those favorite foods soon enough!
Side note - my dr told me to watch out for brie and other soft cheeses (something about the fermentation process and excess bacteria). You may want to check with dr about that one...
Hi Kate, thanks for sharing your experience. What week are you at? I check-check and check by bgs, but sometimes I can't explain why my bg goes high (probably hormones). A couple of times I just kept taking insulin, but the bg stayed high for a couple of hours. When this happens, I get really scared.
I did ask my doctor about brie, and she said it's fine as long as it's made of pasteurized milk.
I think, I found a new food item I can eat - vanilla yogurt :) I will try it tomorrow for breakfast :)
Hi Ana, I'm at 29 weeks. You will get over this hump with blood sugars soon enough! And I found the "next stage" (whatever it may be) just a baffling! It's like constantly shooting at a moving target :) My "advice" is to just continue to discuss it with your doctors and do the best you can. No one can ask any more of you!
