Morning sickness is a common occurrence in pregnant women, but often difficult to control. It is usually caused by an imbalance of hormones due to the pregnancy and usually occurs within the first trimester of pregnancy. Morning sickness can be present in anyone and unfortunately there is often no way of predicting it or alleviating it with general medicine.
Recently The Duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton, has been seen in the media as having a serious but rare form of morning sickness known as hyperemesis gravidarum. In rare cases like this, the body can quickly become dehydrated and therefore pregnant women are given saline drips to rehydrate their body to prevent any serious effects on the major organs and, of course, to the unborn baby.
The imbalance of hormones during pregnancy puts a lot of stress on the body causing factors such as morning sickness. As forms of treatment are limited with pregnant women, one of the best ways to alleviate symptoms of morning sickness is to attempt to control the stress, as well as receptors in the brain that reflect the body’s response to food in this instance. Hypnotherapy is very effective at dealing with stress as well as helping to change behaviours.
The term morning sickness is actually rather misleading as it can occur at any time of the day, not just in the morning. Many women with morning sickness experience nausea, but not necessarily with the vomiting. It does usually ease at 12-14 weeks of pregnancy but in more severe cases, will need hospital treatment. Kate Middleton’s recent experience of morning sickness highlighted some of the important issues surrounding pregnancy and the body’s response to stress. The Duchess of Cambridge turned to the help of a hypnotherapist to help control the symptoms of morning sickness. In this way, hypnotherapy is used to encourage the brain to respond well to healthy, nutritious food, taking away any unwanted or negative responses to food causing morning sickness.
It was in fact Prince William who suggested she visit a hypnotherapist and so far has had positive results. Kate Middleton is now reported to be eating foods such as berries, broccoli and oatmeal as a direct result of her sessions using hypnotherapy to help prevent further bouts of morning sickness. There is much evidence to support the use of hypnotherapy. In fact hypnotherapy has been used for many years for reduction of anxiety and stress and is recognised by Anxiety UK as an effective method of reducing the symptoms.
The Surrey Institute of Clinical Hypnotherapy has been treating anxiety and stress based issues like morning sickness for over ten years at its clinics throughout Surrey. With specialists in many areas including anxiety, stress, hypnobirthing, weight loss, sports performance, IBS, psoriasis and problem behaviours/addictions.