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Written by The HG Collective · Reviewed by HG Clinicians Expert Panel · Last reviewed: July 2026

Living with HG

HG can affect many areas of daily life, including work, caring responsibilities, eating, leaving the house and relationships. This page offers practical guidance for reducing day-to-day demands and getting the support you need.

There is no perfect routine that makes HG manageable. The aim is to reduce the demands on you, keep treatment and support within reach, and make daily life a little easier. Needing help is a consequence of being unwell, not a failure to cope.

Work

HG can make work difficult and, for some people, temporarily impossible. Whether you continue working, reduce what you do or take sickness absence will depend on the severity of your symptoms, the work itself and what support can be put in place. None of those choices is a measure of how committed or capable you are.

In England, Scotland and Wales, pregnancy and maternity are protected under the Equality Act 2010. Once your employer knows—or could reasonably be expected to know—that you are pregnant, they must not treat you unfavourably because of pregnancy or pregnancy-related illness. Pregnancy-related sickness absence should be recorded separately and should not be used towards ordinary absence-review or trigger points.

It is usually helpful to tell your employer in writing if HG is affecting your work. Written notification also triggers the requirement for an individual pregnancy risk assessment. Explain the effect of the illness rather than assuming that the word “HG” will be understood, and include any advice from your GP, midwife or hospital team. Depending on your role and your health, useful changes might include home working, different hours, more breaks, avoiding food smells or travel, or temporarily changing duties.

These changes are sometimes described informally as “reasonable adjustments”, but pregnancy itself does not create the same reasonable-adjustments duty that applies to disability. The relevant duties are protection from pregnancy discrimination and pregnancy health-and-safety law. Where a workplace risk cannot be controlled, the legal sequence is to adjust working conditions or hours, offer suitable alternative work where available, or suspend the employee on full pay if neither is possible.

If you believe you are being treated unfairly, put your concern and what you need in writing and keep copies of relevant messages, absence records and decisions. You can raise the issue informally or through a formal grievance, but doing so does not extend the deadline for an employment tribunal claim. In most cases in Great Britain, the deadline for notifying Acas is three months minus one day from the act complained about; notifying Acas in time pauses the clock during early conciliation. Get advice promptly rather than trying to calculate a deadline alone.

Employment law is different in Northern Ireland. Pregnancy discrimination is still unlawful and health-and-safety protections still apply, but advice and early conciliation are provided by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and the Labour Relations Agency rather than Acas.

From 1 October 2026 this deadline is extending to six months minus one day for most claims — but events before that date still fall under the three-month rule, so check which applies to you.

Relationships and family life

HG often changes the balance of a household. A partner may suddenly be managing meals, childcare, work, appointments and practical care. Other children may see that you are unwell without fully understanding why. Friends and relatives may want to help but underestimate the illness or offer advice that leaves you feeling more alone.

Clear, specific requests are often easier for everyone than a general request for support. That might mean asking someone to collect prescriptions, manage food preparation away from you, take children to school, communicate updates to relatives or simply sit quietly without trying to solve the illness. If explaining what you need repeatedly is exhausting, one trusted person can act as the main point of contact.

For partners and relatives, the most valuable starting point is to believe the person who is ill. HG is not ordinary pregnancy sickness and it cannot be overcome through encouragement, distraction or pressure to eat. Practical help, protection from avoidable smells and noise, and support in accessing medical care are usually more useful than suggestions about what the person “should” be able to do.

Guilt is common when illness changes family life, but responsibility lies with the illness—not with the person experiencing it. A period in which routines, meals, childcare or household standards look very different is a response to a period of serious illness, not a failure of the family.

Getting through the day

With HG, what is tolerable can change from one day—or one hour—to the next. A drink, food or smell that was manageable yesterday may be impossible today. This unpredictability is part of the illness; it does not mean you are doing anything wrong.

It may help to reduce each day to what is essential. Keep medication, fluids, a phone charger and anything else you regularly need within easy reach. Let someone else handle cooking, food smells and household tasks where possible. Rest is not an optional reward after completing everything else: severe symptoms may make it part of getting safely through the day.

Advice about eating and drinking should never be used as a substitute for anti-sickness treatment or medical assessment. Try what you can tolerate without judging it against a “healthy pregnancy diet”, but contact your GP, midwife or maternity unit if you cannot keep fluids or medication down, are passing very little urine, are losing weight or your symptoms are becoming harder to manage.

For partners: supporting someone through HG can mean taking on much of the household, childcare and practical care while also managing work and helping them access treatment. This can be stressful and isolating. Ask family or friends for specific help where you can, and seek support for yourself too. Supporting your partner does not mean you have to carry every responsibility alone.

Staying connected to care

Managing HG often means dealing with different parts of the health service while very unwell. If you can, ask your team for a clear written plan covering which medication to take and when, what to do if tablets will not stay down, where to seek help out of hours and when you should return for reassessment. A partner, relative or friend can help keep track of information, collect prescriptions or speak on your behalf with your permission.

Do not wait until you feel you have reached a particular threshold of illness before asking for another review. Severe nausea without frequent vomiting can still be HG, and urine ketones are not required to prove the diagnosis or assess severity. If your treatment is not controlling the symptoms well enough for you to drink, eat or function, that is relevant clinical information.

Emotional wellbeing

HG can have a significant psychological effect. Feeling frightened, low, angry or isolated can be an understandable response to a severe and exhausting illness. It does not mean the illness is psychological, and emotional support should sit alongside effective physical treatment—not replace it.

In one prospective UK study, 49% of women admitted with HG screened positive for probable antenatal depression, compared with 6% of women in the control group. At six weeks after birth, the figures were 29% and 7% respectively. These results do not mean that everyone with HG will develop depression, but they show why emotional wellbeing should be assessed as a routine part of HG care rather than only when someone reaches crisis point.

Tell your GP, midwife or maternity team how you are feeling, particularly if you feel hopeless, unsafe or unable to cope. You do not need to wait until you are in crisis to ask for help.

If you feel you may harm yourself or cannot keep yourself safe, call 999 or go to A&E now. In England, for urgent mental health support that is not an immediate emergency, call NHS 111 and select the mental health option. You can also call Samaritans free at any time on 116 123.

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