A teenage mom has shared that she had to remove all of her teeth because she vomits excessively during pregnancy.
Morning sickness is a common cause of vomiting during pregnancy. But while it’s called morning sickness, nausea and vomiting can actually occur at any time of the day or night. It is likely due to hormonal changes that cause chaos in your body.
Louise Cooper was just 19 years old when she found out that she was three weeks pregnant while working abroad as a nanny for a ski resort in France. She then started feeling sick and decided to take a pregnancy test, she was shocked when she saw a positive result come out of it.
The teen mom told The Metro about her terrible experience after being diagnosed with Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG). Hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) is a pregnancy complication that is described by severe nausea, vomiting, weight loss, and possibly dehydration. Feeling faint may also arise. It is considered more severe than morning sickness. It is a condition that affects around 1% of women.
Louise said that the sickness had become so bad just a week after finding out she was pregnant, so she decided to end her contract and flew back to the UK.
The mom said: “That’s when I was hospitalized for dehydration because I was throwing up so much. My second hospitalization – within three weeks of being back home in the UK – was when I was diagnosed with HG.”
When she got diagnosed, she felt extremely ill but still focused on finding a way to stop the vomiting. But then everything got worse on the seventh week of her pregnancy.
She told The Metro: “By seven weeks, I was bed-bound. I couldn’t eat, drink, walk, stand, move or even lift my head without vomiting. On top of that, I had debilitating nausea that never eased. It was mentally draining.”
“I’d have fluids and blood work taken, then be given an anti-sickness injection and be discharged around six to eight hours later. The next night, I’d do it all over again.”
Despite her efforts to stop that pain, nausea and vomiting were not lessen and she even got to the point where she begged her consultant, midwife, and nurse for termination by the 12-week mark.
She explained: “The only reason I did not follow through was that a consultant doctor started me on a steroid treatment, which I continued for the majority of my pregnancy and then was tapered down slowly. I was still on three anti-sickness medications alongside this.”
Her mom reached out for help from the charity Pregnancy Sickness Support and she was given advice by a woman who had previously suffered from HG.
Louise said: “I probably went to the hospital more than 25 times during my 37-week pregnancy. Some stays were for a few nights and my longest was a week, but this all depended on the care I was getting.”
The first-time mom that she has been taken real good while she was admitted although some medical staff didn’t know what HG was and told her to “suck it up and have some ginger biscuits” or that it would just go away at the 14-week mark.
She lost her first tooth at around 16 weeks and has no idea why. She said: “By my third trimester, I was losing a tooth a week on average, and it started to affect my self-esteem. I started to feel self-conscious around other people and always wondered if they could see that my teeth were no longer there.”
“I was regularly seeing the dentist, who decided that they would need to refer me to the hospital to have surgery after my baby was delivered.”
The vomiting stopped after she gave birth, but her nausea remained for 12 hours more. And claimed that she went back to feeling human again.
Louise revealed: “At this point, I only had about six teeth remaining, and they were damaged.”
“Trying to eat with only six teeth was hard because I was scared that the remaining ones would just break off too. It was also really painful, and I could only take paracetamol, which didn’t help, and antibiotics to prevent infection.”
“So I was five months postpartum when I had my surgery to extract the remainder of my teeth and roots.”
She was given dentures a few weeks later after the surgery and claimed that it has caused a long-term impact on her appearance and details of her face.
Over a year after having her first child, Louise and her new partner decided to have a baby together but were hesitant about potentially having HG again. She got pregnant quickly and three weeks later the vomiting came back again.
The mom immediately made an emergency appointment with her GP(General practitioner) to start anti-sickness medications, which helped her for a few weeks but it was not as effective and she had to try another.
At 16 weeks, she developed a bladder infection caused by dehydration, nausea had come full force and her body was not responding to any anti-sickness medications. She thought she was going to die that is why she and her partner agreed to terminate the pregnancy.
She said: “I was at a low point and I begged my partner to agree to terminate. He was really supportive of how I was feeling and of course, he was sad that I felt like I couldn’t go through with it but he wanted me to do what I thought was best.”
She continued: “The only reason I didn’t have the termination was that I was given steroid treatments and also anti-sickness medication via injection to do at home. These two things managed to get me through the rest of my pregnancy.”
And she said this time, she had more support from the hospital, her family, and friends. She managed to get through her second pregnancy.
The mother of two is currently waiting for surgery on her teeth to get her wisdom teeth removed. She believes that the last two surgeries in her teeth will completely make her pain-free and said that she was super excited to get rid of them.
The young mom hopes to raise awareness and for other pregnant women to understand that HG is not just “morning sickness”, it is extremely serious that you should ask for help to get through it.
Louise also wants pregnant women to know that their feelings are completely valid and if they are suffering, they should contact Pregnancy Support Sickness (PSS) for advice and support.