When Pregnancy Almost Kills You
Soon after the latest royal pregnancy was announced, HuffPost Parents posted a callout on its Facebook page looking for women willing to talk about their experiences with HG. Within 24 hours, more than 100 e-mails poured in. Women called themselves “HG survivors” and described battles with extreme weight loss and vomiting more than 20 times a day. Again and again they emphasized one point: Morning sickness and HG are not the same thing.
Certainly morning sickness ― which affects roughly 70 percent of moms in the first trimester ― can be hard, but it’s generally not harmful for women or their babies and tends to fade. HG, on the other hand, absolutely puts women and babies at risk. These are the moms-to-be who vomit more than three to four times a day, who are unable to keep down any food and who lose more than 5 percent of their pre-pregnancy weight. The Oregon-based Hyperemesis Education and Research Foundation (HER) says these women tend to have nutritional deficiencies and metabolic imbalances that can be life-threatening.