The pregnancy struggle women go through that nobody believes | Sarah Edge & Marie Vaile

Content note: this episode discusses pregnancy loss, termination, intrusive thoughts, and post-traumatic stress. It's not morning sickness. It was never morning sickness. Marie Vaile and Sarah Edge on Hyperemesis Gravidarum, the pregnancy condition that puts roughly 1 in 50 women on the bathroom floor for months, and the psychological recovery nobody warns you about. This week's pairing:. Marie Vaile is a BACP-registered, NCPS-accredited Integrative Counsellor based in Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan, specialising in maternal mental health, including Hyperemesis Gravidarum, baby and infant loss, and birth trauma. She has lived through HG herself during pregnancy with her son, and volunteers with Pregnancy Sickness Support, where she has spoken on BBC Radio Wales about the severe mental impact of the condition alongside leading clinical researchers. Sarah Edge is an accredited BACP person-centred Psychotherapist and the founder of Edge Therapy at the Thrive Wellbeing Hub in Sale, with over a decade in counselling practice and a specialism in perinatal mental health. Her work is informed by her own debilitating experience of Hyperemesis Gravidarum, postnatal depression, and the intrusive thoughts and hallucinations that followed, and she is the author of a published Maternal Mental Health Journal designed to support women through pregnancy and the postnatal period. Chapters 0:00 - Intro 2:00 - What hyperemesis gravidarum actually is 6:00 - Not morning sickness: the spectrum 12:00 - Constant nausea, dry HG, and smell sensitivity 18:00 - The recurrence rate: roughly 85 percent 22:00 - Isolation and the loss of normal life 28:00 - The guilt of being a burden 33:00 - When termination becomes a question 40:00 - Complex grief and the wanted pregnancy 46:00 - Bonding difficulties before and after birth 52:00 - Medication stigma during pregnancy 58:00 - The myths: weight loss, hospitalisation, and what makes HG 'real' 1:04:00 - What to say (and not say) to someone with HG 1:10:00 - Recovery after the birth: PTSD and post-pregnancy support 1:16:00 - What changes when therapists are the patients In this episode: Hyperemesis Gravidarum is not morning sickness. It affects roughly 1 to 3 percent of pregnancies, sits on a spectrum of severity that can change from one pregnancy to the next, and at its most acute looks like constant nausea, extreme fatigue, and a sensitivity to smell that can be triggered by something as ordinary as toothpaste or someone preparing food in another room. Some women experience 'dry HG', persistent nausea without vomiting, which is just as debilitating and even more often dismissed. From there the conversation moves to the psychological cost. The isolation of not being able to work, not being able to socialise, not being able to leave the bathroom floor for weeks at a time. The guilt of feeling like a burden to a partner or a wider household. They are equally direct about bonding. Chronic illness during pregnancy can quietly damage the relationship a mother has with her baby in utero and in the early months after birth, and that often arrives carrying significant guilt of its own. Symptoms typically stop the moment the baby is born, but the psychological aftermath does not. Post-traumatic stress is common, the body and the mind take time to recover, and most women are sent home with no warning that any of this is coming. The episode closes on the practical. The stigma around taking medication while pregnant, weighed against the necessity of survival. The harmful idea that you have to lose a specific amount of weight or be hospitalised to qualify as having HG, when many sufferers do neither and are no less unwell. And the list of well-meaning things that hurt the most when said to someone in the middle of it: that ginger will help, that it'll be worth it when the baby arrives, that you should try to stay positive, that you are pregnant, not ill, that it did not exist in my day. Marie and Sarah point listeners toward Pregnancy Sickness Support as the place that does understand. Resources mentioned Marie Vaile - https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellors/marie-vaile Sarah Edge - https://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/counsellors/sarah-edge Pregnancy Sickness Support (UK charity): https://www.pregnancysicknesssupport.org.uk/ Sarah Edge's Maternal Mental Health Journal: search 'Maternal Mental Health Journal Sarah Edge' on Amazon MindFriend (the platform): https://mindfriend.com/ MindFriend Pro: https://mindfriendpro.com/ Connect with us Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/2OnHUJDQnwcjcp67wLC6O1 Instagram: @mindfriendtalk | @mindfriend__ TikTok: @mindfriendtalk #MindFriendTalk #NotMorningSickness #HyperemesisGravidarum