Someone you know has hyperemesis

You were sent this because a household you care about is drowning and would rather you understood than had to explain again. There is a long list of concrete offers further down. Pick one. Any one of them is worth more than asking what she needs.

Your help is not a nicety. HER Foundation says research finds a supporter's help is a major factor in the health of both mother and baby. That is why this page is long.

Pick a job. There is one that fits you.

Useful help is specific, scheduled and repeating. "Let me know if you need anything" hands a depleted household one more decision, so it almost never gets used. Find yourself below and take the job.

If you can give a couple of hours

• Take a standing slot. The same two hours every week that they never have to arrange again. This is the single most valuable thing on this page.
• Sit in the house while she sleeps so the partner can go out. Being there is often the whole job.
• Do the appointment run: drive, park, wait, take notes, drive home. The notes matter, because two exhausted people forget half of what was said.
• Take one night shift so the partner gets a single unbroken sleep. One good night changes a whole week.

If you cook, or can pay for food

• Feed the household, not the patient. The partner and any children still need three meals a day and nobody is making them.
• Ask about smells first, then deliver cold and leave it. Cooking and even reheating can set her off, so food that goes straight into a fridge beats a hot dish at the door.
• Disposable containers only. Nothing that has to be washed, matched and returned.
• Repeating grocery delivery. Milk, bread, lunchbox food, nappies, pet food. Boring, and enormous.
• If there is one thing she can keep down this week, buy it in bulk. It will stop working. Buy the next one without comment.
• Send a delivery gift card instead of choosing for them.

If you have a car

• Pharmacy runs, and repeat runs, because prescriptions change often in this illness.
• School and nursery runs, both directions, on fixed days.
• The tip run, the recycling, the parcel returns nobody has managed for a month.
• Be the on-call driver for a hospital trip, so the partner is not driving while frightened.

If you are far away

• Take the admin. Insurance calls, bills, employer paperwork, chasing referrals. All of it happens from your own sofa and it hands back hours.
• Be the family switchboard so the partner stops giving the same update to eleven people. Take one update, then relay it.
• Order a cleaner, a laundry service or a meal delivery to their door. Distance stops none of those.
• Text with no reply expected. "Thinking of you, no need to answer." Isolation is one of this illness's documented harms.

If there are other children

• Take them out on a schedule. Saturday mornings, every week. They get normality and the house gets quiet.
• Do the birthday, the costume, the school project that nobody in that house has capacity for.
• Do bedtime once a week. Bath, story, lights out, on the hardest hours of the day.
• Answer their questions plainly: Mum is ill, it is nobody's fault, it is not catching, and she will get better. HER Foundation has a page written for children, How Can I Help Mommy?

If you have money but not time

• A cleaner, fortnightly, paid up front for three months.
• A laundry service that collects and returns.
• Petrol or parking cards for hospital trips. Hospital parking quietly eats hundreds.
• Pay a bill directly rather than offering cash. HER Foundation names financial loss as part of this illness's damage: medical costs on one side, lost income on the other.

If you work with either of them

• Cover shifts without making it a story.
• Do not speculate about her in the office. She may be close to losing the job: HER lists being unable to work for weeks or months as a defining feature of HG.
• If you manage them, say it out loud: "Your job is safe, we will sort the cover." Then put it in writing.

If she is admitted

• Bring the partner food and a phone charger. Nobody feeds the person in the chair.
• Take the children overnight, and offer before you are asked.
• Feed the pets, empty the bins, do the washing, so they do not come home to a house that stopped.
• Do not visit the ward unless she asks. Bright rooms and visitors are hard when you are this ill.
• HER Foundation has a Hospitalization Guide written for exactly this.

The things that land badly, however kindly meant

These sting for a reason that is not fussiness. Being disbelieved is part of the harm here: research on HG reports that difficulty getting recommended care is a risk factor for the worst outcomes, including women ending wanted pregnancies. Believing her is not a courtesy. It is part of her care.

Words you can borrow

Composing the message is half the reason it never gets sent. Do not compose. Copy one, change the name, send it.

It is a long illness, so plan like it

• The first three to four months are usually the worst, and HER Foundation notes HG typically eases by mid-pregnancy but can last until delivery. Offer help in months, not days.
• Put it in your calendar as a repeating event. Support fades after a fortnight because people mean to and then forget. A recurring reminder beats good intentions.
• Keep going after the baby arrives. She may be recovering from months of malnutrition; HER has a postpartum recovery page for that reason.
• Do not disappear if the replies stop. No reply is a symptom, not a message about you.

The facts and quotations here come from the HER Foundation's own Family & Friends pages, read in a browser August 2026, and are listed on the sources page.