May 15th is International HG Awareness Day, and the international HG community has chosen the theme: HG Reality. You can help the HER Foundation raise awareness and educate about your HG Reality!
Here’s how you can help!
- Email HER pictures of your #HGreality, your HG art, and your family: theHERFoundation@gmail.com
- Complete HER’s research surveys.
- Tell your HG Reality story.
- Join our Facebook Event.
- Follow HER and share our content.
- Donate to find more answers.
YOUR picture or story may be all it takes for someone to hear our message of education and advocacy.
SHARE THE FACTS
- HG, hyperemesis gravidarum, is a pregnancy disease marked by rapid weight loss, malnutrition, and dehydration due to unrelenting nausea and/or vomiting.
- HG is not the “morning sickness” of healthy, normal pregnancies. It is a distinct diagnosis marked by severe and relentless symptoms that pose significant risks to the health of both mother and baby. Over 1/3rd of HG babies do not make it to term.
- HG babies are at increased risk for low birth weight, small size for gestational age, and preterm birth. In utero exposure to HG is linked to a 3.6-fold increased risk of emotional/behavioral & developmental disorders.
- Nearly 20% of HG pregnancies are lost to therapeutic terminations, citing “no hope for relief.” Current treatments are not adequate to prevent termination of these planned, wanted pregnancies.
- Mothers with HG’s most severe forms can experience pneumothorax, organ rupture, retinal detachment and blindness, eardrum and jaw damage, rib fractures, esophageal tears, the neurological syndrome Wernicke’s encephalopathy, or even death.
- 18% of women report full criteria of post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS) following an HG pregnancy. More than half of mothers have post-traumatic stress symptoms.
- In 2009, inpatient treatment for HG in the U.S. cost more than $250,000,000. HG is the leading cause of hospitalization in early pregnancy, and is second only to preterm labor as the most common overall cause of hospitalization during pregnancy.
GET INVOLVED
- Participate in HG research.
- Become an advocate.
- Make a gift to the HER Foundation.
- Share your story and support other HG moms.
- Become a HER Foundation volunteer.
- Blog about HG and show support for HER.
- Share HER resources with local health professionals and hospitals.
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