Have you tried ginger?

"Have you tried ginger?"

It was lunchtime.

I was working in an open plan office in Canary Wharf at the time, nearly 6 weeks pregnant, and every time someone brought in their lunch it set off the most intense nausea I had ever experienced.

It got to the point where I had to start leaving the office at lunchtime and sitting outside, because the smell of everything was too much. I was scared I would end up being sick in front of everyone.

Feeling desperate, one lunchtime I walked into a pharmacy. I told the pharmacist I was pregnant and feeling really sick, and asked if there was anything I could take.

"Have you tried ginger?"

Of course, the pharmacist meant well. But anyone who has had severe pregnancy sickness will tell you it is the most triggering question there is, and it gets asked a lot.

By the time a woman is asking a pharmacist, a GP or a midwife, she has probably tried ginger. She is there because it's not working. It is like calling a plumber about a flooded kitchen and being asked if you've tried turning the tap off.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists now says that healthcare professionals should not suggest ginger to women with severe pregnancy sickness. Not only because it erodes a woman's trust in the person asking, but because in a survey of over 500 women with hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), a severe form of pregnancy sickness, more than half said it made their symptoms worse.

It is easy to forget how small a thing can break a patient's trust and hope. It might seem like just a question. But it says a lot about how we view the condition, as something that can be fixed with a trip to the supermarket. And that tells you all you need to know about how seriously it is taken.

So when SIPS opens, we want every woman to be able to count on one thing: no one will ask her whether she has tried ginger.

Source: RCOG Green-top Guideline No. 69, 2024.