Ever heard of it? Well, I hadn’t either, but guess what? I sure had it, both times I was pregnant, both of which pregnancies I terminated, and was very much relieved to do so, in no small part because I had HG. Hyperemesis Gravidarum is defined as a severe type of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, and what blows my mind – truly – is that as I google the condition I see it is said to be rare, fewer than 200,000 cases per year. WTAF. TWO-HUNDRED THOUSAND IS NOT RARE, BROTHER-FUCKERS. Look, not to overstate the case but if men had HG, there wouldn’t be any ‘rare’ nonsense attached to it, and there would be more care for women who suffer from it, although – yay – progress has been made, primarily by female physicians doing research and digging in within the medical profession. THANK GODDESS.
I can tell you from my own experience – although there are a number of other currently pregnant and suffering from HG women in the PBS Newshour clip I’ve linked below – that HG is serious fucking business. I could not get on the subway and ride for more than two stops, I could not be driven in a cab for more than ten, I couldn’t work my usual shifts, and I was getting up twice, three times a night to barf, and let me tell you, the nausea – even when my stomach was empty – was so intense I wanted to die. Enjoy puking up bile all day long? Then HG is for you! Not. I actually learned to carry an empty paper cup against spontaneous vomiting, but, unlike the doctor whose work, among others, has led to breakthroughs in the treatment of HG, I did not lose weight and become incapacitated to an extreme due to HG: she was bedridden and lost a wanted child because of the condition. Additionally, historically, because the (infamous) drug Thalidomide was used to treat ‘morning sickness’ in the late 50s and early 60s, resulting in infant deaths or profound defects in the living children of women who had taken it, drug manufactures and researchers were extremely cautious in ever approaching this issue again, while women and their families continued to suffer.
It’s hormonal. Hyperemesis Gravidarum is caused by a hormonal deficiency in a percentage of pregnant women, some of whom had pregnancies previously where it was not an issue. I have to say I hate using the term ‘deficiency’, because women like myself who had HG aren’t ‘deficient’, a word with negative connotations, but… It’s hormonal, which means it’s treatable, and not in any way the pregnant person’s fault. The doctor who through her research found this hormonal quirk was told when she was suffering from HG, and lost her child as a result, that she was attention seeking; at the time she was too weak to fight back against her own doctor (who I sure hope she subsequently canned) and his callous stupidity and sexism. Representation matters. HG is real, I know it because I went through it, and finally, finally help has arrived.
Thalidomide was never part of treatment regimens in the U.S. thanks to another female researcher and medical professional, Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey, whose work at the FDA – where she was integral in creating rigorous testing standards for new drugs – continued until her retirement in 2005 at ninety-years young. She-ro. It had never been tested in pregnant women prior to its wide use – with tragic results – in Europe. Thank you, Dr. Kelsey. Representation, folks, representation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Oldham_Kelsey#Birth_and_education