The Mint Experiment

I was told when I got pregnant that chewing mint gum would help with my nausea. To explain a little bit about how bad my nausea actually was is New Year's Eve night. Justin and I didn't plan to do much other than watch the ball drop at midnight at home as neither of us are the ones to go out and party at any part of the year let alone where everywhere we could've gone would be so packed that I would have a drunk frat boy on one side and a twenty one year old blonde on the other trying to hook up with half of the bar.

Anyway, we decided to stay home and were just chilling on the couch. I have only known for a few days that I was pregnant so I didn't know entirely what to expect when it came to nausea or morning sickness. Justin made me his amazing cheese dip and I crushed it. About an hour after, my stomach started to feel weird. It started to make these gurgling sounds that even Justin could hear. Yep, this was gonna come back up. I hopped up from the couch and took maybe three steps before upchucking all over our floor not once but four forceful times. It made it about four feet out before my stomach started to feel better after it emptied. My poor Justin took it upon himself to clean up the mess (bless his heart) as I went to the bathroom to clean up.

A relative had suggested that maybe mint would help my nausea spells. I hadn't heard of this before and thought it was some crazy home remedy that helped her but couldn't imagine something like chewing a piece of gum would actually help the nausea I was experiencing. After about a week, I finally decided to look and see what the handy 'ol internet had to say about it. From what I concluded after looking at a few different reliable sources, although chewing on mint leaves themselves may have some side effects that may not be worth it to you as a pregnant woman but chewing mint gum, especially peppermint, could really help and easier to come across.

I decided to give gum a try, specifically Wrigley 5 Spearmint Rain and Wrigley 5 Peppermint Cobalt chewing gums to see which worked best. I used one full pack of each for one full day (12 hours) at the same time. Despite the sources saying that peppermint would work best, in my personal opinion, the Spearmint made my nausea almost completely diminish whereas the Peppermint only made it tolerable.

Of course, this would most likely vary from person to person so don't take this post as one hundred percent factual.

Have you ever used mint leaves or mint gum to help with your pregnancy nausea? If so, did it help you? Do you have another pregnancy safe remedy you use?

-D