Green with morning sickness?

Living a relatively green and organic life - I thought that pregnancy would be an easy, happy and healthy experience for me. That is exactly what it was until around week 9 when I went from feeling energetic and well to being unable to lift my head from the pillow within the space of 24 hours.

My intellectual desire to eat leafy greens was thwarted by my inability to digest almost anything but potato in its blandest form; peeled and mashed and more often that I would like to admit from a takeaway outlet!

I became glued to the sofa, unable to read or string a sentence together and felt like I was on a boat with severe sea sickness 24 hours a day. I became irritated when people referred to my 'illness' as 'morning sickness'. If anyone ever makes the motion to rename it 'all day and all night sickness' I will be the first to second it! I also became tired of people telling me that it was 'mind over matter' and that morning sickness wasn't a physiological disorder, I did however find a solution to this - allow them you in your sickly state and most are very quick to (after recoiling in horror) admit that perhaps it is real.

On the green side - being unable to move from the couch pretty much puts showering out of the question, so I do feel I saved even more water than usual during this time!

Through it all, I felt, that it was my own doing, as deep down, I don't think I ever realised that 'pregnancy sickness' could be so debilitating, and perhaps, had I not had this somewhat awful time, I would have remained without significant empathy for women who suffer from it. To those that have been or are going through this battle - I am sorry and completely understand!!

Fortunately by week 16 things started to improve but I still couldn't admit to being the 'glowing pregnant woman' that is so often referred to. If I do find her, I plan to have a stern word or at least ask her secret!

Now 24 weeks pregnant and happy and healthy all this seems in the distant past (well poor memory is one of the reasons we can have more than one child isn't it!) and I have finally started living a truly organic pregnancy. The kicking is wonderful and in some ways I am even enjoying my expanding belly.

It is so wonderfully exciting to know that there are so many things that I can do or choose not to do that will maximise my babes chances of optimal health. I am not referring to just having a baby that arrives with all it's bits a pieces working correctly (this is of course a blessing!) but a child that may due to precautions I am taking also have a lower risk of allergies and chronic diseases in later life. While there are a number of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the environment that I can not personally remove, I can improve the local environment in both my home and my body to some extent. While the links between certain synthetic chemicals and disease are very strong, proving this unequivocally from a scientic point of view can be difficult due to the fact that there are no uncontaminated control groups (that is we are all contaminated). This is also made difficult by the fact that often disease does not present until long after exposure or after years of chronic low level exposure to a chemical (or combination of chemicals). However a growing number of scientists, health professionals and some doctors agree that waiting for further evidence, without action is likely to mean risking irreversible damage to the health of future generations.


So if you would like to reduce your exposure to potentially dangerous substances in the lead up to or during your pregnancy here is just some of the lifestyle choices I personally make. Some may suit you and some may not....we can all learn from each other, so I am happy to hear your ideas.

I am fortunate in that I already clean without synthetic chemicals (this includes laundry) and do not use any toxic cosmetic or skincare products. Additionally I am careful about which plastics I use, I try to avoid Teflon in cookware and don't own a microwave. I eat organic foods for a large part of my diet (but eat whatever I like, without guilt when out), drink distilled water, have a water filter on my shower (and a flow reducer of course!) to remove chlorine, lead and other impurities from the water. We choose furniture that does not use formaldehyde based glues and toxic sealants and we often pick up second hand items (which have conveniently off gassed in the years when somebody else was using them!). Failing that we ask for floor stock, so at least the product isn't freshly sealed. We choose not to paint our house when we moved in, and did paint our fence but in natural non-toxic Bauwerk paints. We won't paint the nursery and will try to avoid buying new furniture or clothes for the baby. We will choose organic cotton, wool and bamboo bedding and clothing when possible. We have already had an organic merino wool blanket knitted by Tony's mum - craftswoman extraordinaire!!

Of course there are loads of things we need to improve on; we still drive more than we should, we don't yet have a rainwater tank and while we compost and have a worm farm we still need to get cracking on our organic veggie patch. While our house is powered by 100% renewable energy (from synergy) we would like to become more self sufficient over time.


Importantly we seem to have a good balance, on which we have been constantly improving over the past several years. Now as the time for the birth of our first child gets closer we are starting to put things in place to ensure that he or she can become a 'green babe' from the very start.

Perhaps we can make the birth carbon neutral?..................................now that's got to be a good way to start your life!

Please feel free to send us or BLOG regarding your own experiences, ideas or advice.

Signing off

Green Gina and the green bump