Helen

 		 Ein Bericht in Englisch von Helen. Danke! (20.09.2003)
 
I suffered acutely with both pregnancies. The first was in 1996 in Wiesbaden (D) and the second in 1999-2000 in Luzern (CH). Both were boys.
In the first instance, everyone I spoke to including the FA's receptionist said sickness was perfectly normal (and healthy!!!).
So I was better prepared for the second pregnancy. My Swiss FA monitored my symptoms and weight loss, and I was hospitalized in what must be the best maternity wing in the world: The Klinik St Anna, Luzern. Here I was
cossetted by a team of highly trained nurses who held my hand, chatted, and smuggled tomatoes with salt into my room. They also, (beat this) checked the IV drip regularly through the night using a torch so that they didn't
wake me up. My conclusions on the topic of hyperemesis are as follows:

Every book dealing with pregnancy should give over a separate chapter to it, and not insult us with dry-cracker remedies.
Everyone who has suffered from normal "morning sickness" should be bound and gagged before they try to sympathise.
The medical profession can't be bothered to research the syndrome because statistically a) babies don't suffer, b) not enough women suffer enough and c) men don't suffer at all.
It could be hereditary: my mum suffered too.
It is not psychological. (I only bring my duvet into the toilet during the first trimester.)
It is not a result of the mother feeling insecure, or unworthy. No, not even secretly.
It could be caused by the mother's (?genetically predisposed) immune system reacting to the foreign DNA, compounded by the assertion of the foetal DNA. The reason why only some women suffer is no different to why only some people develop asthma. See "Genome" by Matt Ridley (ISBN 1-85702-835-x) chapters "xy" and 15.
Sex of foetus is irrelevant.
I could not go through a third pregnancy!