today is mother’s day and i have received my first “gift” as a mother. morning sickness. i know that a lot of people take drugs for this type of thing but to be completely honest with you i just don’t trust drugs. and why should i? both thalidomide and des were prescribed for morning sickness and just look at how much damage these drugs caused! you would think that we would learn our lesson. but we continue to prescribe pregnant women untested drugs. i have been recommended zofran (ondansetron) by some very well meaning loved ones but it scares me. a lot of women are and affectionatly call it “the miracle drug”. but there has only been one study on zofran in pregnant women. zofran’s label even warns that it should not be used by pregnant or nursing women.

“The only real human study done thus far was for “Placental transfer of ondansetron during early human pregnancy, Siu SS.” showed that the drug was found in maternal venous blood, coelomic fluid, amniotic fluid, and fetal tissue. Since this drug is a SHT3 receptor antagonist and that’s key to proliferation, differebtiation and migration of the central nervous system neurons as well as chondrogenesis it is possible that the drug could have an impact and could be so long before you ever knew that it’d be difficult to correlate the defects back to drugs.”

with the lack of studies on zofran in pregnancy it is tremendously hard to find “side effects” on it (or anything more specific than “may cause birth defects”). many women claim that there are none however after scouring the web i have found numerous complaints about heart defects on babies whose mothers took zofran early in pregnancy. who knows what we will find out in ten years about this drug. until then as pregnant women we need to weigh our options and be sure to discuss any prescriptions with your health care provider and pharmacist before taking anything that you are unsure of.

so the question remains about what I am going to do about this morning sickness problem. well other than keep some crackers on my nightstand to pop into my mouth before i even sit up in the mornings. and i have been drinking Yogi brand “mother to be tea”. here is a good link to some more natural remedies.

i would love to hear about what works for you!

**update 5/20/08**

I discovered the most wonderful “cure” for morning sickness. Sea Bands! They are accupuncture wrist bands that while wearing take away the nausea. I bought mine last night for $8 at the Target pharmacy. They are great because you can re-use them as many times as you want and even wash them up to 5 times. Best of all you are not putting a drug in your body. So there are no side effects. Getting used to the plastic studs is the hardest part but it’s such a small price to pay for feeling normal. Anyway I am super excited about this update and being able to feel normal again.