What causes headaches, dizziness and vomiting in pregnant women?

When we watch TV, we often find such plots on TV. Once they want to show a woman being pregnant, the first thing they do is to make her feel like vomiting while eating. In fact, pregnant women do experience morning sickness during early pregnancy, and they often feel dizzy. Doctors often say that this is a normal physiological reaction. Why do pregnant women have this reaction during early pregnancy?

Dizziness and vomiting are mainly caused by insufficient blood supply to the brain.

1. Low blood pressure and cerebral ischemia

This type of pregnant woman usually faints when she stands up suddenly or takes an elevator. In the early and middle stages of pregnancy, due to the formation of the placenta, blood pressure drops to a certain extent, generally 1.33-2.67 kPa lower than usual, which is physiological. For pregnant women with pre-existing hypertension, the drop in blood pressure will be even greater. When blood pressure drops, blood flow to the brain will decrease, resulting in insufficient blood supply to the brain, causing cerebral ischemia and hypoxia, which in turn causes dizziness and vomiting.

2. Eating too little leads to low blood sugar

This type of pregnant women sometimes experience paroxysmal dizziness and vomiting, accompanied by palpitations, fatigue, and cold sweats, which usually occur when they eat less. When blood sugar is low, cell energy is reduced, leading to fatigue, dizziness, nausea, cold sweats, palpitations and other discomforts.

3. Improper body position compresses blood vessels

This type of pregnant woman usually has an attack when she is lying on her back or sitting on the sofa watching TV, but not when she is lying on her side or standing. The dizziness and vomiting experienced by this type of pregnant woman is a symptom of supine syndrome. In the late stages of pregnancy, due to the enlarged uterus, when the woman lies on her back or sits lying down, the heavy uterus presses on the inferior vena cava behind it, preventing blood from returning to the heart from the lower body. The amount of blood returning to the heart decreases sharply, and the cardiac output decreases, leading to a decrease in blood supply to the heart and brain, causing dizziness, nausea, chest tightness and other discomforts.

4. Anemia in pregnant women is also a common cause of dizziness and vomiting in pregnant women.

It can be seen from this that women may feel dizzy and want to vomit during pregnancy, which is indeed a normal physiological reaction, so once this happens, there is no need to worry too much. However, if you can change your body position, diet, etc. based on the above reasons, you can alleviate the symptoms of dizziness and morning sickness to a certain extent.