08/07/2025
When Pregnancy Isn’t Beautiful: Our HG Story
Growing up in a family of 10, we watched our mum suffer through pregnancy constant puking, weakness, and bowls full of spit we’d help her empty. We didn’t know it had a name. We thought she was just “very sick.”
Years later, each of us daughters began to experience the exact same thing. Extreme nausea, endless vomiting, weight loss, hospital trips pregnancy became something we feared, not celebrated.
It wasn’t until then we discovered the name: Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG) a severe and often misunderstood condition that affects 1–3% of pregnant women.
HG is not just regular morning sickness.It lasts the entire pregnancy unlike morning sickness which lasts between 12-14 weeks. It’s a physically and emotionally exhausting condition that isolates many women and steals the joy of pregnancy. It’s a real medical condition, and it deserves awareness, compassion, and support. It is characterized by persistent, severe nausea and vomiting often throughout the day, not just mornings, inability to keep food or fluids down, weight loss of more than 5% of pre-pregnancy weight, dehydration(dry mouth, dizziness, dark urine), fatigue and weakness, electrolyte imbalance and sometimes low blood pressure.
There’s no single known cause of HG but contributing factors include elevated hormone levels (especially hCG and estrogen), genetics (family history increases risk), first-time pregnancies, carrying multiples (twins, triplets) and history of migraines or motion sickness.
Research suggests a strong hereditary link, especially among women in the same family. That’s why seeing that our mum had HG and then in all our sisters is powerful and very real.
There is no cure, but symptoms can be managed. But we share this to say: you’re not alone. Whether you’re deep in it or healing from it, we see you. And we’ll keep raising awareness until HG is no longer brushed off as “just pregnancy stuff.”
Have you experienced this or you know someone that did?
