I was 7wks pregnant when I started to vomit. All-day, waking up in the middle of the night half asleep vomiting all over my bed. This became my reality for my first pregnancy. My OB didn’t have a lot of information and never told me about HG, although he was able to put me straight on all the usual meds. I continued to work through my first pregnancy and carried a bin or zip lock bags with me wherever I went. It was hard but the excitement of being pregnant for the very first time got me through.

I fell pregnant with my son when I was 27. We had recently moved to Australia so I didn’t have my mum and sisters on the same continent. My mother in law had recently passed away and my sister in law was not interested in babies. I had no maternal figures around. My own mum and sister had never had morning sickness and had textbook pregnancies and births. To say I was naive would be an understatement!

While nothing can be stated definitively, the current research is positive and indicates there is no additional risk to HG mothers. In fact, the review suggests that mother’s with NVP or HG actually have a reduced risk of miscarrying. So, in short - no, hyperemesis gravidarum does not generally cause miscarriage.

Before I became pregnant with my daughter in 2014 I knew nothing about HG. I had heard Princess Kate had been hospitalized for her “bad morning sickness” but really how bad could it be? I was wrong. Very wrong. I got a positive pregnancy test at 5 weeks. My husband I were so excited to start our family. 3 days later the vomiting started. It didn’t stop.

Comparing morning sickness and HG is like comparing a papercut to a bullet wound. Sure, both are things that happen to your body and cause you distress. But the similarities end there. They are part of the same family but more likely distantly related cousins who only catch up at Christmas.