Summary: Supplementing with split doses of Vitamin B6 has proven to help reduce the severity of nausea and vomiting from early (first trimester pregnancy). It also appears to be safe for baby and mom. Ginger may be even more effective for reducing nausea severity and is also safe.
Dear Curtis: I’m in my first trimester and this is my first pregnancy, so I don’t have anything to compare it to. But I’m terribly nauseated every day. I do often throw up, but not every day. Mainly it’s the nausea. It is better later in the day but I just am worried I won’t be eating enough. My doctor said it’s common and to not get real concerned about it. A friend of mine told be that supplementing with Vitamin B6 may help. Is this true?
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While the evidence we have at this point is a little limited, a couple of studies have used Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine) in the treatment of nausea and vomiting during early pregnancy and the results were promising.
In one study researchers selected 342 women in their first trimester of pregnancy who suffered from morning sickness. Half of the group took a placebo and the other half took pyridoxine tablets at 30mg a day. Patients graded the severity of their nausea and vomiting prior to taking the pyridoxine and again during 5 consecutive days of treatment (1).
The vitamin B6 group had a significant decrease in the severity of nausea as well as the number of vomiting episodes.
So I’m comfortable in saying that vitamin B6 can be helpful with reducing the severity of nausea and vomiting in early pregnancy (first 3 months). There isn’t any evidence for it’s effectiveness in later trimesters. Also, there is not any evidence that taking it will cause harm to mother or baby – but double check with your doctor before you take it.
Also, it may be helpful to break the dose up throughout the day. For example, the recommended dose is pyridoxine 10mg three times a day.
Another Option
While pyridoxine is helpful, ginger might be even more helpful.
A 2009 study broke 70 women who were in their first trimester of pregnancy and suffering from morning sickness into two groups: one group took 1 gram of ginger per day the second group received 40mg of vitamin B6 a day for 4 days (2).
The results showed positive improvements for both groups. But the ginger was even more effective at reducing the severity of nausea symptoms. For example, 29 out of the 35 women who took ginger said their nausea was improved versus 23 of the 34 women who were taking vitamin B6.
The number of vomiting episodes decreased in both groups and there wasn’t any significant difference between the two in that regard.
You Now Have Two Options
Obviously, you need to discuss this with your doctor – but morning sickness is something that plagues a lot of pregnant women. It’s nice to have a couple of natural options to help. Vitamin B6 has proven to be helpful and safe. Ginger appears to be safe as well and possibly even more effective when it comes to reducing the severity of the nausea.
Also, you may be able to take both of them at the same time to see if that helps even more. There doesn’t appear to be any known drug interactions between ginger and vitamin B6.
Products discussed in this article:
- Vitamin B6 (click here to read user reviews). Keep in mind that a lot of vitamin B6 comes in 50mg as the lowest dose. It’s fine to just get the plain 50mg tablets (they’re cheap) and break them in half and then in half again.
This will give you 12.5mg in each dose and you can take that three times a day to get you into the range they used in the studies (30-40mg per day).
- Ginger (click here to read user reviews)
References:
- Vutyavanich T, Wongtra-ngan S, Ruangsri R. Pyridoxine for nausea and vomiting of pregnancy: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 1995 Sep;173(3 Pt 1):881-4.
- Ensiyeh J, Sakineh MA. Comparing ginger and vitamin B6 for the treatment of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy: a randomised controlled trial. Midwifery. 2009 Dec;25(6):649-53. Epub 2008 Feb 12.
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