How to Prevent Morning Sickness While Biking

This pregnancy has left me with nausea 24/7. It basically sucks to go from active and feeling great to tired and sick. How can a healthy body feel so bad?  But I’m not alone. Up to 90% of pregnant women experience some degree of nausea or vomiting during pregnancy. Although it’s uncomfortable, nausea is actually just a sign that all is well with you and your baby, and that your baby is growing and developing just as it should. Here are some tips on how to prevent morning sickness while biking.

An internet search or a chat with your doctor will lead you to dozens of tips on how to curb your queasiness. Some of them would help me (a little) but most of them just seemed like a waste of time.  But it’s all worth a try as something might click with you.

What you will not find much information on when you google ‘morning sickness’ are tips from active moms. There were a few things that helped me, so here they are…

Pregnant Cycling – Intense exercise is not only bad for the babies development it is also bad for morning sickness. You can’t keep plugging along as you were before.  But you can continue to bike at a lesser intensity. It was really hard for me to motivate myself to get on the bike or go out for a hike during weeks 6-12. I was always nauseous and tired and it seemed like the last thing that would help.  But I never regretted getting out for a ride. For some reason when I was in motion the morning sickness would ease. I’m not sure if it was because my mind was occupied with riding or if there were some other physical changes happening but it worked. Granted the effects did not last and I always needed a nap after but that hour or so was such a nice break.

If you can motivate yourself to get out and exercise it should help your symptoms.

Hydration drinks – After awhile i got really tired of just drinking water. My doctor suggested that Gatorade might help. Since I don’t drink that even when I feel great (stomach rot) I wasn’t about to start now. But I did dig back into my Skratch Labs mix for some relief. I mixed up the flavors and it gave me some relief from bland water. I also think the electrolytes and a bit of sugar helped my symptoms. After all a bit of sugar helps you hydrate better. So while you might not be racing you are doing some intense work – making a baby!

Tip: Freeze your Skratch Labs mix and make your own prego pops! These were much easier on my stomach than the popsicles from the store I would crave.

Exercise bars – You need to eat whatever clams your stomach. Sometimes I found that bars and chews that I would normally only eat while riding hit the spot. Honey Stinger chews felt like candy and eased my queasiness. I also ate Clif and ProBars a lot for snacks.

Rest – Just as athletes need rest to properly recover for the next race, a pregnant woman needs rest to allow her body to do the amazing work of creating another human being.  Rest was also one of those rare things that gave me some relief from my nauseous state.  So don’t be afraid to kick back and relax!

Hopefully a few of these tips will help ease your morning sickness. But if not, the morning sickness often wanes at the end of the first trimester. And as long as you stay hydrated, nausea is unlikely to harm the baby—just sicken you. I guess it’s just the start of your parenting sacrifices!

Find our other cycling related tips and articles here.