FAO Alice

My wife is eight weeks pregnant. She's having trouble keeping food down, so her doctor suggested taking 50 milligrams of vitamin B6 twice a day. It seems to work, but we're wondering how it helps.






Ravinder Lilly answers:

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No one knows for sure how vitamin B6 (also known as pyridoxine) relieves queasiness. It helps the body metabolise certain amino acids (proteins), which may somehow reduce nausea. Doctors first used vitamin B6 in the 1940s to relieve morning sickness during early pregnancy. Do talk to your midwife or doctor about how much to take and when to take it. It doesn't work for all women, though, so I'm glad it does for your wife. Vitamin B6 is also important because it strengthens the immune system, aids nerve impulse transmission, assists with energy metabolism, and synthesises red blood cells.

There is some evidence that taking a supplement of Vitamin B6 does reduce symptoms in some women with severe pregnancy nausea, although it does not reduce episodes of vomiting. However, the Food Standards Agency in the UK recommends that no more than 10mg of B6 should be taken each day as a supplement. This is very different to the situation in the USA where supplements providing 100mg/day are easily available.

Your wife can get the B6 she needs from food sources as well as a vitamin supplement. A large banana provides almost an entire milligram of this B vitamin. Brown rice, lean meats, poultry, fish, avocados, whole grains, corn, and nuts are also high in vitamin B6. So, provided your wife can stomach them, she may want to add some of these foods to her diet along with the vitamins.

Reviewed by Fiona Ford, dietician, March 2006

LOL id throw them back up! .... Thanks for that hun some great info. xx