5 September 2026 · Roshni Mahtani Cheung
Cofounder, Little Rei · Mother of one
Morning Sickness, and the Biscuits by the Bed
The plate of plain biscuits and the glass of water on the nightstand is the most-repeated advice in early pregnancy. It worked for me, which surprised me, because almost nothing else on the list did.
An empty stomach makes the nausea worse, and the longest it's empty is overnight, so eating before you sit up interrupts the cycle before it starts. You have to eat lying down, or at least before your feet touch the floor, and that detail gets left out, which is the reason a lot of people try it and conclude it doesn't work.
The name is wrong and it matters
It isn't confined to mornings for most women. Calling it morning sickness leaves you wondering what's wrong with you when it arrives at six in the evening, which is when mine reliably did.
Nausea in pregnancy affects most pregnancies, typically starting before week nine and easing between weeks fourteen and twenty, though for a minority it continues well beyond that. Knowing the shape of that curve helped me more than any remedy did, because the worst part of the first trimester was not knowing whether this was the rest of the pregnancy.
What helped
Eating before getting up, as above. Then small amounts often, on the principle that an empty stomach and an overfull one are both triggers, so I ate roughly every two hours and never to the point of being full.
Cold food, because heat carries smell, and smell was the trigger I could least control. Cold rice, cut fruit, plain crackers and yoghurt got me through weeks six to twelve, and I couldn't be in the kitchen while anything cooked, which my husband handled without once making it a thing.
Ginger, which has reasonable evidence behind it for mild to moderate nausea and is the one traditional remedy I'd repeat. Ginger tea, ginger sweets, ginger in anything.
Fluids in small sips through the day, not a glass at a time, since a glass on a bad stomach came straight back up and left me worse off than before.
What didn't
The acupressure bands did nothing for me, though the evidence on them is mixed instead of absent, and plenty of people swear by them, so I'd not talk anybody out of a cheap pair.
Dry toast, which everybody recommends and which I couldn't get down. Eating more protein, which was suggested to me repeatedly and which I was in no position to act on, since the whole difficulty was that food was the problem. And pushing through it at work, which I did for about three weeks before admitting that I was not, in fact, managing.
Elsewhere in pregnancy
When it stops being ordinary
This is the part I'd have wanted in bold, because the culture around early pregnancy treats sickness as something to endure, and there's a version of it that needs treating.
- Unable to keep any fluid down for more than about a day
- Passing very little urine, or urine that's dark
- Losing weight instead of holding steady
- Dizzy on standing, or a racing heart
- Vomiting blood, or severe pain with the sickness
Hyperemesis gravidarum is the severe end of this. It's a treatable medical condition, not bad luck. Anti-sickness medication in pregnancy exists, is prescribed regularly and is considered acceptable, and a woman who's been vomiting for a week should not be talked out of asking about it by somebody telling her it's natural.
Shan is ten and I remember almost nothing about weeks six to twelve except the shape of the ceiling above our bed and the fact that the biscuits worked. I never did find out why the ginger helped and the toast didn't.
This guide is general information, written to help you understand a topic and ask better questions. It is not medical advice and does not replace your own doctor, midwife or paediatrician. Anything that worries you about your baby belongs with them.