Is morning sickness universal? And if so how on earth did the human race survive!

[PeelingmyselfofftheCeiling]

The other day as i was contemplating the toilet bowl for the zillionth time I found myself wondering whether women all over the world get MS?

As annoying as it is for me to puke up my pasta, it's not really going to do me or my bump any harm, as i can waddle down to my overstocked fridge and make myself another snack. But if I was living in sub-Saharan Africa and that was the ONLY nutrition I was likely to get all day, would my body hold on to it, or still end up vomiting?

Have there been centuries of Inuit women dry-heaving at the thought of another meal of whale blubber (if so, I really feel for them!)? Do Japanese women retch over a breakfast of pickled things and raw fish? Do Mexican women go off spice?

I read that mango is an Indian cure for MS, so presumably it is prevalent there, because I wondered if it's more a western phenomenon. Anyone know?

I can't answer your question, but apparently cats get morning sickness - or sickness in early pregnancy, at any rate. Mine was sick in my slippers when she was expecting.

No, it's not universal. I did a lot of googling about this, because I didn't get morning sickness and was paranoid about it! There is a correlation between average meat and egg consumption in a country and how likely the women of the country are to get morning sickness (I'm veggie and had gone off eggs, so was happy with this explanation!). I'll try and find the links again if you like.

According to one pregnacy book I was reading about a fifth to a quarter of women don't really get it at all on average. The book was a UK/US publication so presumably those stats are for western societies.

I haven't been sick at all (i'm 11+2), but I have felt sick quite a lot.
(if i eat when I feel sick, i feel better)

I'm veggie, too, but I have been eating eggs and dairy.
maybe there is some correlation then?

I wonder if there are traditional remedies that have been lost. I'm told marajuana is effective, for a start.
I bet you anything that if there was a serious attempt to research morning sickness remedies among indigenous people who still use traditional medicine, they would come up with something, but because of the problem of ethics and testing medicines on pregnant women, and the risks if it goes wrong (cf thalidomide) it is not a big priority for most drug companies.

HAve just found this about a - potentially dangerous - traditional cure used by Nigerian and West African women, which suggests that even in areas of low nutrition it is prevalent BBC

nickel I've completely gone of meat and fish. Can't stand anything other than the blandest chicken. Still eating eggs and mainlining cheese.

interesting Peeling.

ah, but have you gone off those because you're sick?

maybe if you hadn't eaten them to start with, you might have been better....
(hope that didn't make you feel worse, though)

No nickel, I don't think they're connected, because fortunately I'm not actually vomiting up much food (apologies if TMI!), mostly just retching in the mornings and feeling nauseous 24-7. Even though pasta made me sick I'd happily eat it again not rice pudding though, ever, shudder.

I didn't think they were - till Mainly suggested it.
thought it might make a good survey

see, now it's a bit warmer, I'm sitting here and suddenly I feel very queasy indeed.

I might need to find some food....

4 Dc and never any morning sickness - veggie again and I have dairy intolerance (since birth) and just could never face eggs. Sometimes felt queasy on way home from work in evening but eating a slice of ginger root and having a biscuit always cured it.

Interesting if eggs and dairy are the cause as most people try to have more milk etc for the calcium when pregnant and it could be causing problems with the sickness.

Currently preganant with DC2 (20 weeks) and not a moment's sickness for either pregnancy. Committed carnivore and cheese lover, not a massive egg eater but not an egg avoider either. I think it is just chance, and thank my lucky stars that I'm in the minority who don't suffer!

Those of you eating eggs - how do you have them? Is anyone eating softly boiled I DESPERATELY CRAVE a lovely softly poached egg on toast and eating hard boiled eggs Does Not Do It For Me...

I am steadfastly ignoring the no-soft-yolks rule.

and i told that to my midwife.
she didn't have any reasons why i shouldn't (agreed with me that it was the salmonella thing, which all chickens are vaccinated against now).
yes, i'm eating softly boiled, and "over-easy" fried eggs.

Nope, never been or felt sick in my pregnancies. I did get terrible heartburn towards the end - ended up glugging Gaviscon straight from the bottle.

nickelbabe - I totally keep reasoning in my head that it is only the salmonella thing - you are right. Oh for gods sake, I'm having me some poached eggs on lovely fluffy white toast this evening and I am going to darn well LOVE IT!

i had zero morning sickness with my son. this time around I feel yucky about half the time but it seems more a hungry thing than a nauseous thing.

i had two lovely poached eggs the other day - figured the risks were minimal.

honestly, it's fine.
the midwife totally agreed with me.
as long as the eggs have the lionmark stamp on, they're vaccinated.

I've got my own chickens (they were vaccinated by the farm that reared them) and I've had countless soft yolk fried eggs and a couple of softly boiled eggs with soldiers since I became PG and i appear to be fine.

I know plenty of women who have never been sick and rarely even felt nauseous when pregnant

Don't know if it's connected, but I have not yet met a French woman who has been sick in pregnancy....a bit queasy yes, but not sick.

I'm still being sick occasionally at 19 weeks which seems to shock everybody, including my doctors!

I didn't really get morning sickness when I was pregnant. I certainly didn't get anywhere close to actually being sick. I'm not even sure I felt nauseous - it's easy to start imagining nausea when you know you are 'supposed' to be nauseous.

Bart that's interesting, I guess it depends how many pregnant French ladies you know!

I did find a blog about a Japanese woman with terrible morning sickness, so I guess that answers my sushi-for-breakfast question.

Still nothing on Innuit though... unless anyone knows any

There also seems to be quite a few schools of thought that it's largely in the mind, or at least a sort of projection of what you expect because you know you're pregnant, but that seems unlikely to me. I LOVE my food, didn't for one minute think I'd get it, and really have been surprised by how it's affecting me.

Although all those "I didn't know I was pregnant till I gave birth" stories do rather back up the point.

if it was eggs and dairy that caused it then vegans wouldn't get it and you would think they would have noticed that by now, wouldn't you? If I could have a sickness-free pregnancy I would happily turn vegan for 5 years or so prior to ttc....