What causes spitting during pregnancy?

I am two months pregnant but I can’t stop spitting. How can I control it? Akiiki

Dear Akiiki,
Usually, humans produce and swallow one and half litres of saliva a day and because they can easily swallow it, it is hard to tell when it is too much until one fails to swallow the saliva and resorts to spitting the excess.

Excessive salivation, referred to as sialorrhea, may be seen in some pregnant women because they produce much more saliva and fail to swallow it, hence the need to keep spitting.

This is common in early pregnancy when a pregnant woman also suffers from vomiting or when a woman has other medical problems. 

Brushing one’s teeth properly while avoiding irritating tooth paste, eating small, well-balanced meals often, avoiding starchy foods, drinking plenty of water and swallowing any excess saliva can help reduce the salivation.

What is happening to you is normal in pregnancy and can happen to any pregnant woman. Here, patience is required since the salivation will end at around three months when the morning sickness also stops. 

However, you should combine the wait with the measures above. Also, consult your antenatal clinic in case the spitting is caused by a problem that requires medical attention. 

Can playing in the rain cause malaria?

As children, we were told not to play in the rain or eat boiled maize to avoid getting malaria. Is there any truth to this? Annet

Dear Annet,

Malaria is a disease that affects all age groups but more commonly children and pregnant women where symptoms are much more severe many times leading to complications and death.

Chilling of the body when a person is incubating malaria may bring on malaria quicker, the more reason this malaria being very common in children may strike the children most after a drizzle has chilled the body.

Anything that causes fever in Uganda is usually confused with malaria and conditions such as a common cold may lead to pneumonia after a rain chill with a child who was coughing getting seriously sick with a high fever, among others. Because both a common cold and malaria are common in children, they may coexist so that a blood check in a child with pneumonia may be found positive for malaria.

Malaria is transmitted by the female anopheles’ mosquitoes that breed in stagnant water, which is abundant with increased rainfall during the rainy season.

Maize growing requires the same rains that create stagnant water pools and it is not surprising that increased incidents of malaria coincide with the maize season.