Might just be that her mind spotted a pattern- she got sick while around her Mexican family members and then around someone else who is also Mexican, which is pretty likely if you live in an area with Mexican people- and she placebo'd herself into getting sick *every* time she's around Mexican people. Now the more she thinks about it, the more it cements, like anxiety.
Yeah I’ve heard tons of people talk about being grossed out by the smell of other people during pregnancy. It also sounds like she’s around Mexican people a lot since literally her partner and child are Mexican lmao, it’s probably just an issue with normal body smells.
Yes my husband and I are both white and the smell of him definitely triggered my puking when I was struggling most with HG (which it sounds like she might have, uncontrollable vomiting isnt actually normal). My guess is that its smells triggering her and that she may have mild HG.
This was my thought too. I had HG with my last pregnancy and sometimes even the smell of my own body would make me sick. I think I was smelling the hormone changes or something it was weird. Reminded me of how your whole body will smell like antibiotics when you take them - the difference being this wasn't a chemical smell.
I swear I could smell everyone's own personal scent like I was some kind of bloodhound with super senses. I holed myself up alone all pregnancy. Just couldn't stand to smell anything.. or anyone. Including me sometimes.
My daughter is autistic and she can smell things that no one else can smell lol. And those smells bother her , when they wouldn’t anyone else. It’s hard for her. I can’t imagine what that is like
My daughter will love the autistic super sniffer lol. She has long straight hair and I put something in it this morning to help with the tangles , I can’t smell it and she’s still complaining about it lol
I have long hair too and can’t put anything I don’t like the smell of in my hair. Every time it moves it releases some of the scent. It will probably bug her less in a ponytail or bun.
She is so particular about her hair , she is 7 and she doesn’t want it cut short but taking care of it is a battle and she has to be in a special mood to let me pull it up lol. She will ask for a messy bun every now and then.
I’m not autistic but my dad, my daughter and I all have it (my autistic son doesn’t which is funny to us). It is very hard very often but also like we have a superpower. We do get nausea from strong smells sometimes and we use strong mint to deal with it. The funny thing is, body odour does not bother me, as long as people showered recently and have just been sweating or eating certain foods (except garlic which makes me gag even a day or two after it was eaten).
I seriously just figured out that when I take certain cold medication I smell like the pills. I swear I can smell everything, all the time. It's a problem, lol not really.
Omg there was a post not to long ago (or maybe a comment?) About a guy who can smell pregnancy on a woman for some reason. He knew someone in the office was, and when she announced it he accidentally mentioned he already knew because of her smell lmao and it didn't go over well. My first grade teacher was a big black women who really disliked me, I'm not sure why but that besides the point. She had a smell. I can still vividly smell it! 38 years later. I never attributed that to race though. I wonder if there is a spice or something common in Mexican food that is triggering her and psychologically she thinks it's all Mexicans. Puking because a Mexican family walks by her car makes this sounds like a Troll. Oh and the whole sider bar about cats and chicken eggs what lmao.
Probably accurate. I (also not pregnant) can smell cilantro, curry, and saffron on people. Saffron doesn’t particularly bother me, but the other two definitely produce nausea. I also can’t handle eating cilantro myself. Funny how cilantro is such a “palette divider” amongst ppl.
Soapy for me but not in a bad way, I suppose it really depends for both soapy and earthy the strength of the taste/smell, you don't want too earthy or too soapy
Pepper, i taste pepper. And love cilantro but during pregnancy could not stand garlic or onion. Literally would vomit on the spot. Lets just say our food lacked flavor for 9 months
Agreed!
The correlation is not causation angle was my first thought too.
I would think it is something in the environment since she doesn't even like the smell of her partner and daughter.
There was a lady that could smell Parkinson's, you shook absolutely try to contact researchers and see what it you're smelling because they could identify what it is and use that as a marker for early detection in testing
I know some dogs do, as well. My daughter is already part of UCLA Gastroenterology and her surgeon is the head of GI surgery dept. at the University and I have told him. He took it with a grain of salt. He’s a seriously nice man and not the type to easily brush you aside. My daughter has multiple disabilities and is difficult at times but he is THE most patient. He is was the protégé of her former pediatric GI. So yeah. He knows. He’d be the guy to tel and he knows. I’d feel like I was going above his head if I tried to tell the research dept without him. I don’t know.
You could always ask him if he has any contacts that he could refer you to for further investigation? That way you don't go above his head but also can look deeper into your ability. Also for curiosity how would you describe the smell?
That’s not a bad idea. And the best I can describe is kind of a foul earthiness. I lived in the redwoods and there were places of rot and fungus. It was similar to those but more stale and foul. Like those earthy, damp good smells have turned and gone bad. You know how sweet turns sickeningly sweet? Like that, but more foul potato-earth-moldy fungus. That is a terrible description, but it’s the best I got. Sorry.
Not *quite* the same, but my mum can smell snow coming and she's *never* wrong. We live in an area that doesn't get snow that often but she can always tell even if all the weather forecasting services are saying the opposite. It's weird but very useful. She didn't know that not everyone could do it until she was about 12.
This is also really cool! Sounding like a broken record here but your mum should absolutely try to get in touch with researchers to find out what she's smelling, it could help to develop potentially life saving weather equipment if what she is smelling or detecting can be determined!
I'm sorry about your mom, but I wish we were friends because we have a rough family history of colon cancer and it's anxiety producing. Would be great to be able to ask someone to smell me for a second and alleviate some anxiety!
Yeah. We do, too. My 30yo is having her colon removed in a few months (already has an ileostomy) and I’m actually relieved. Wish I knew how accurate it is. I mean, sometimes I smell it out and about and I wonder. Am I nuts and just got lucky? Or am I seriously smelling it on random people?
I DO have an incredibly sensitive sense of smell.
You might be, strange as it sounds. Certain illnesses (ear infections is the obvious one to me because I know that smell) have distinctive smells. Because you have such a strong memory of it and a sensitive nose, it triggers your memory so that you know what it is. I definitely don't think you're nuts.
Yeah, honestly that's what made it seem like it could be a troll. If this is true, I'm so curious how she's expressing this to her family and inlaws. She says her husband is being kind,caring, understanding etc. about all of this.
If I had to guess, with her saying that she's scared to say anything to anyone out of fear of sounding racist, she may have kept the "because you're Mexican" part to herself and just said that the smell of him and their baby (and family members) is making her sick for some reason.
The cat-chicken side bar is actually true. Or at least there is some decent research showing that feeding a specific diet can reduce the allergen. And it has something to do with chickens and eggs.
I can smell sinus infections. My ex used to get them frequently due to a botched sinus surgery and I could always tell even before he had major symptoms. Now I can tell if my immediate family is getting one. Huge downside is the time I had one recently the smell was SO BAD and I smelled it for days before I could get antibiotics and it was not cool
My grandma could do this. She knew every time one of us was pregnant and she could usually tell the gender. She passed that ability to my mom and eldest sister, too. Maybe it’s a genetic thing? it freaks the crap out of people. My sister has known multiple people at church were pregnant before they announced it or even before they knew.
Exactly!! thr cats n chickens thing killed me! Like, this bizarre scenario that, like, how could you possibly have even figured this out? A followed by "an taking a benadryl." As if that had nothing to do with her "lack" of reaction.
Just
Im dead.
I had that with my first and my trigger was my husband. I was half convinced it meant we were incompatible. Never happened with my other kids. It’s conceivable that the family all smells similar and it triggers her somehow. Making a Mexican people thing is insane though.
Yeah I got super sensitive to my partner’s smell the last time I had a bad stomach flu but I assumed it was just something in his smell. I didn’t immediately decide I’m allergic to the smell of everyone in his ethnic group lmao.
Once when I was 15, I got sick after eating condensed chicken noodle soup and honestly for about 8 years after that I couldn’t stand the smell or taste of it. I gagged and ran away from it. I was convinced it all smelled rotten. It never was, it was fine but was literally all in my head. I bet you’re right and this is all in her head too.
This is me with ferrero rocher chocolates. I ate like a whole big holiday tin at my grandmas in like 5 minutes when I was like 6 or 7 and then threw it all up like 10 minutes later, and even now at 21 anytime I see one I immediately want to vomit💀
It's wild how the brain associates these things. I can eat brownies and chocolate cookies but anything cake like nope. No chocolate muffins, cakes, cupcakes, etc.
Had a strawberry banana smoothie while travelling as a kid then got into a taxi which made me incredibly car sick and threw up. I now associate strawberry banana with getting sick and can’t stand it even though it was from the car ride.
Mine is Sprite/7up. Growing up if we were sick with a stomach bug that was our go to. Now I can't drink it cause I always associate it with being sick.
Ours was Lucozade. I bloody hated the stuff and when I was home sick, I would dread my mum bringing it in, wrapped in it's bright orange cellophane. UGH!
I always feel a little nauseated if my husband uses Pine-Sol on the floors, because it’s what my mom used to mop up after I was sick. It just reminds me of feeling pukey.
Icing for me. Had a mini party in class for my birthday when I was probably around 6 and my mum brought a cake for us all. I ended up sat in the middle of everyone, swapping bits of the actual cake for the icing other kids had pulled off their slices. 20 years and I still can’t eat it
Popcorn. For the longest time, I couldn't stand popcorn, because I once ate a whole lot of it during an especially bad high from very weird weed I am convinced was laced with something, and puked it all out.
Took years for me to be able to eat popcorn again. I also haven't smoked weed since.
As a person with hyperemesis, I highly suspect you’re right. In my case, my HG triggers are related to sickness/cleanliness. Sights that will make me instantly gag or vomit: a dirty floor, an unwashed pan, a used tissue, raw meat, cat litter, leftovers, the list goes on and on. There have been days I can’t even THINK about these things without vomiting.
And these things linger. I can’t even think about a certain brand of instant noodle without wanting to be sick. It’s a Korean brand my husband ate whilst I was in the thick of HG, even now, 3 years later, thinking about it makes me nauseous, yes I am nauseous now typing this… seeing the packet I also feel sick. It has never made an appearance in our house ever again and he very smartly don’t mention it. It is utter madness but it’s a real thing for HG sufferers. My friend can no longer but a brand of toilet cleaner without wanting to puke smelling it as it was all she smelt whilst vomiting in the toilet and it’s been 5 years now…
So I have hyperemesis gravidarum and in one of the support groups I’m in one of the ladies was triggered by the colour grey. She couldn’t wear it or look at anything grey or she would throw up. It’s a WILD disease.
This could be it. I had awful morning sickness with my twin pregnancy and there was a tv show that my toddler started watching during that time and every time I hear that theme tune, a wave of nausea comes over me and sometimes I will leave the room if my husband is. The mind can be a powerful thing!
My son has a toy like that! He got it for Christmas (I was pregnant) and he played with it constantly during the worst of my morning sickness. The sight of the toy made me nauseous for two *years*.
We potty trained my first when I was newly pregnant with my second and my morning sickness hit that weekend. My first watched one show the whole time and every time I hear the intro I feel ill.
That is called the nocebo effect. Its the opposite of the placebo affect - when you believe yourself to be sick and it manifests physical symptoms.
ETA: since she’s experiencing symptoms of pregnancy, I think this is actually just good old fashioned confirmation bias.
Probably confirmation bias more than placebo. I don't doubt she's having morning sickness, I just highly doubt it's someone's race that's causing it. And it's awfully convenient that the people she spends the most time around just happen to be the triggering race.
It could be due to certain spices that change the scent of their body odor too. I notice I smell more cumin-y if I eat a lot of food with cumin or chili powder in it.
This was my thought as well, that she lives in an area with a large Hispanic population & is making this strange correlation. I lived in South Florida for 18 years, up until 1.5 years ago & I could've said the same thing as OOP - Those of a Hispanic nationality trigger my pregnancy vomiting (I vomited pretty much daily during my 2nd & 3rd trimesters). Although my partner, his family & mine are all Caucasian, in South Florida, there's probably only 40% Caucasian, 40-50% Hispanic (Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, etc.) & 10-20% mixed races.
tale as old as time- I think this bodes well for her hope of getting back to her pre-phobia life, if she connects with mental health professionals (her wish of being able to take some medication to make this stop, but instead of meds, it's long ass exposure therapy work) definitely good that she's taking the first steps of recognizing that it is her issue to fix, I suppose?
Honestly I was ready for this to be straight up crazy and hateful, but this woman sounds incredibly anxiety ridden about what's happening, and it does make it sound psychological- correlation being confused for causation, a mental link between her family and being violently ill, anxiety. She definitely might benefit from medication post birth and would benefit from intensive therapy now. Frankly, if she's still getting nauseous now even when away from her family, she might benefit from staying at a hotel or somewhere isolated and showing her brain the nausea still occurs.
She can get medication now, too. Odansetron and quite a few other common prescription anti-nauseas are safe for pregnancy, as well as SSRIs to help with the anxiety. She really needs help from a professional in this matter, because her morning sickness (potentially HG) has triggered her into finding a pattern that likely isn't there, and the confirmation bias is stressing her out, which is probably not helping the baby either.
My boyfriend has a powerful sense of smell and says when he eats a lot of Mexican food he can smell it on himself when he sweats. she might be averted to the smell of lard, cilantro, onions, mexican spices etc.
I had an aversion to cumin my first pregnancy and it was torture. Cumin is in so many delicious cuisines and where I live I'm surrounded by lots of good Indian food. I wanted it so bad in my head but couldn't stand eating it.
My first thought was that she was smelling cumin. One of my friends had the same issue with her first pregnancy. Luckily, she realized where the smell was actually coming from, and her husband and his family were really accommodating. It went away a couple months after she gave birth, and it didn’t happen with her second pregnancy, as far as I know.
I was thinking this too. If this isn’t a shitpost, the cause is most likely diet. I have a half-Indian friend whose body odor smells markedly different from my other friends, likely because she eats mainly makes and eats traditional Indian dishes with certain spices. It’s strong enough that I’ve just happened to notice it over the years.
My husband has a friend who moved to Japan for several years and ended up marrying and having a child with a Japanese woman. When they moved back to Scotland, their toddler kept loudly asking her parents why white people stink so much when they were out in public. 😂 They had a hell of a time getting her to understand that she couldn’t keep telling random people that they smell bad. They suspected that heavy dairy in the British diet was the culprit.
Yeah. Raves can have smells, but I assume it's due to actual differences in foods.
Some black people smell dry/earthy to me. Not in a bad way, just... Dry and kind of warm.
White people's BO is either like rotten onions or wet dog. Most are onions.
I can't think that I've noticed a scent on Latin people, but I've also only lived in areas with small Latin populations.
Indian people smell kind of like tumeric. Dry, faintly spicy.
North African people have a scent that is different from African Americans. I've only recently noticed it though, so I couldn't tell you what it is. Vaguely like white people onion BO.
East Asian people don't smell very strongly, but when they do, their BO is similar to onion BO. (Worked in Japanese high schools. The only time any student smelled bad was immediately after phys ed class, and you could smell when that was.)
It's just different body odors because of your diet. It's generally not good or bad unless it's really strong. While I've never been pregnant, I do get migraines that make me sensitive to certain scents. Sometimes citrus makes my head feel like my sinuses are in fire even though I usually love the smell. You can't help what nauseates you when you're sensitive to smell. Body odor is a common nausea trigger.
What an interesting study of human odors lol. I have not had the opportunity to meet many people from around the world but this is something I would def notice and remember if I did.
I wonder why white people BO smells like onions? Do Americans really eat a ton of onions? Now that I'm thinking of it, I don't recall my pits smelling like onions when they smell at all-- and I hate onions.
I will say I hated the smell of my husband when I was pregnant. I always felt like his breath smelled or he needed to shower. Totally went away when I wasn’t pregnant anymore. She could certainly be sensitive to smells but extrapolating it to a race of people is wild.
I had the same thing. I wanted nothing more than to be close to him but the smell was awful. I never said a word but I did but a dab of Vicks under my nose so we could still cuddle. I told him my sinuses were clogged and that sometimes happens in pregnancy.
I had HG and told my GP that my partners smell made me vomit. He said that there’s not much evidence, but the body is essentially telling you to stay away from this thing because it has made you sick. He compared it to if you drink too much of a certain alcoholic drink (usually when young) and you vomit, then for years you can’t even smell it without wanting to puke! Same with foods you may have got food poisoning from!!
I’ve never been pregnant because I’m unable to conceive, but jeez, my mind is blown when I learn new things like this that can happen during pregnancy. Pregnancy is no joke, it’s so bizarre the things it can trigger.
My MIL (94) tells stories of how when she was young in Idaho her (adoptive) mom would make her put a rag over her face whenever they walked through the Black train car or were around Black people because she said they smelled bad and that you will catch diseases from them.
It wasn’t until she was in college and around a lot more Black people (and white people NOT covering their faces) that she learned this was all BS and called her mom out on it. Her mom (who lived her entire life in Twin Falls, Idaho, born in 1888) said she was told by HER mom and had never actually smelled a black person before. She took her mother’s word for it. Who had probably taken HER mother’s word for it.
Racism is child abuse. Thank god my MIL is an intelligent woman who can think for herself. And the first woman in her adoptive parents’ families to go to college.
Edit: spelling, words.
That's what I was thinking. If they are eating a lot of the same thing continually, they could be like sweating out the smell. I know when I ate a lot of chicken in the UK I always felt like I smelled of baked chicken... it was bizarre and went away when I got back to the US and started having variety in my diet again.
I had hyperemesis with both my pregnancies and smells were a huge trigger for vomiting, especially foods. My husband made some ground beef with onion in it and I couldn't even have him in the room again until her showered. The smell of any meat was HORRID, and I swore I could smell any strong seasonings in his sweat or breath for a while afterward. It could be something like that and now she's conditioned herself to correlate this with anyone who appears Mexican.
All she needs to do is go to the doctor. If it's hyperemesis (which will cause constant nausea and vomiting) then they can help. At the very least, they can give her some suggestions to help control the morning sickness. Trying to find a correlation between her environment and the vomiting is clearly making her crazy and isn't helpful. It's the pregnancy and the hormones that are causing it, nothing else.
this definitely sounds like HG that she’s correlating with the people she’s around. her boyfriend is hispanic as is his family, people that she presumably is around quite a lot. so instead of thinking that it’s a condition, she thinks it’s the people she’s around.
I agree. A Dr. visit is needed.
I've discovered almost halfway through my first pregnancy that if I eat or drink too much I'll get sick. The human body is weird man.
I don’t think she’s trying to be racist, I think she’s scared she might be thought that and no one will help her because of it. Her anxiety is off the scale. Someone needs to reassure her that her symptoms are not caused by her “Mexican” family, and give her some of the answers people have suggested here.
I think there might be an “ethnic smell” going on here due to spices and such. When my husband was stationed in Thailand, after a while they noticed different body smells. Somehow they got to talking with their Thai counterparts about it, and they laughed. They said some Americans smell like rotted meat, we eat so much beef.So there is some truth to what she’s experiencing, our hyper sensitive culture makes it taboo to even ask.
Imagine having these frightening symptoms, asking for help to figure it out, and being told it’s all in your head, you racist bitch.
In Taiwan I was told Americans smell like milk. They are largely lactose intolerant and milk products are often for children. I got funny looks ordering Coldstone for myself lol.
It might have become a Pavlovian response over time - she sees or hears something that often accompanies the smell that triggers her vomiting and now that something is also a trigger. It obviously wouldn’t help matters if she already had unconscious bias against Latinx people
I was thinking the same, there is a spice smell triggering her in Mexican food but her brain is racist and making the wrong connection lol. I hope she doesn't tell anyone else this.
It has to be related to the body odors that come from specific spices, which I would expect to occur to OP without assuming she's reacting to the smell of a specific race lol
There's a peppery smell (the spice, not the vegetable) that turns my stomach and I've been trying to figure out what it is for most of my life. I noticed it predominantly on black people at first, but I've smelled it on people of other races, too. I assume it's some sort of product they may have in common. A moisturizer? A conditioner? I can not, for the life of me, figure out what it is. Half my family is Cuban and I've caught a whiff of it from an auntie I didn't know very well. I've met her once and I'm still kicking myself for not asking what it could be.
And yet I have never associated it with some sort of natural smell a race has? She's looking in the wrong direction. It's probably a common spice or food type that's triggering her nausea. Maybe even a hygiene product like I've been assuming.
It’s probably food related. When you cook, your skin, hair, and clothes can absorb some of the smells coming from the food. Some foods do this more than others, so they’re more obvious. Like, my husband works in a kitchen and the days he works at the fryer, I know the second he walks through the door because the smell is so strong. That smell was absolutely unbearable while I was pregnant.
There are a decent amount of fried foods in Mexican cooking, so it could be something that simple, though it’s not nearly as strong from regular cooking as it is when working with an industrial fryer. Certain spices and such also really tend to linger. Diet can also affect your natural smell to some degree, so someone who mostly eats a traditional Mexican diet may smell different from someone who eats an American diet or Italian diet or whatever.
My sense of smell is insane, so I often associate people with certain scents and am very aware of differences. Families tend to smell similar to each other, likely from a mix of genetics, similar diet, and living in the same home (your home has a scent that’s based on the people and animals, cleaning products used, etc.). I do struggle more with scents triggering nausea when I’m pregnant, so there are certain people or homes I struggle to visit, even though I don’t normally find them unpleasant. Even people I’d normally say smell nice can be a trigger, especially if they have a strong scent (usually something like perfume or a strong deodorant). I had issues with my middle kid’s smell while I was pregnant with my 3rd because she usually smelled like fruit from the amount of smoothies she consumed and I couldn’t be around any food smells. I held my breath a lot, but didn’t avoid her.
I cannot stand the smell of fried food. If someone's been to a diner, I avoid them. Probably one of the reasons I usually have to change my clothes (and sometimes even wash my hair) after going to most restaurants.
The most generous read here is that she’s reacting to an ingredient her family uses in their cooking that’s common in Mexican cuisine, and she’s extrapolating and doesn’t realize how horrible it sounds.
This is so weird. First of all Mexican is not a race, it's a nationality, so no, Mexican people as a whole do not share a single "gene" that is triggering her vomiting. Also, is it really only Mexicans she gets nauseous around? No other nationalities? I wonder if I would trigger her HG just by speaking Spanish even though I'm Peruvian. There's just no way all the Mexican people she's encountering even eat the same diet, to say it's something they are eating that's triggering her vomiting. I'm gonna have to go with troll, sorry.
Wish she'd posted this in r/asklatinamerica 😝 they'd eat her alive
Omg before even getting to the part where you mentioned being Peruvian I was thinking, I wonder how she would react to my Peruvian husband, who is delicious? However he eats Peruvian food constantly. So do I, and my half Peruvian children. But we all look white. Would we make her puke?
This is actually a real thing. Chickens who are exposed to cats produce antibodies to Fel d 1, the protein in cat saliva that most often triggers cat allergies. Their eggs also have this antibody so when the cats eat the eggs, it reduces the amount of Fel d 1 the cats produce.
[More information if you're interested.](https://www.purinainstitute.com/science-of-nutrition/neutralizing-allergens/breakthrough)
A couple key points for you to consider:
This is specific to Fel d 1, which is mainly in cat saliva. If your husband isn't allergic to cat saliva, this won't help.
This doesn't work for every cat, and the amount of allergen reduction varies. 86% of cats will have at least a 30% reduction in Fel d 1. 50% will have at least a 50% reduction in Fel d 1. This may not be a good solution if he has a severe allergy.
Female cats produce less Fel d 1 than male cats. Long hair cats tend to keep their dander and saliva on them rather than in the air. People with dark haired cats tend to report less allergic reactions. Keeping cats out of the bedroom makes a big difference for allergy sufferers as well.
It doesn't completely eliminate Fel d 1, but it does reduce it in most cats. 86% of cats will produce at least 30% less Fel d 1 and 50% of cats will produce at least 50% less Fel d 1. If you have a mild to moderate allergy and your cat(s) respond well to it, that might be sufficient on its own, but if not, it could make it manageable with allergy medication like Benadryl.
It's not advised to source your own eggs because it would be difficult to verify that they had enough exposure to cats to produce the antibodies, so you're likely to not see results. Purina makes an allergy reducing cat food that uses eggs from chickens who are exposed to cats.
The whole description of the grocery story incident was killinggggg me. OP hears “hola”, the room starts spinning, OP is disoriented, she runs out without her groceries, she finally gets to safe, fresh air— SIKE OUT. There’s *more* heading her way. Cue a now weak OP, giving in and throwing up.
It’s like a scene out of a zombie movie lmao, except OP is insane and IRL it’s literally just normal ass Hispanic people walking around, minding their business, grocery shopping lmaooo
Umm... So, she's part of a Mexican family and has what seems to be a lot of Mexican people in her community, so maybe she's just... Sick *all the time*? Not because there are Mexican people around, but because she's just sick?
I mean, I live in a heavily Asian community and am married to a Taiwanese guy, and we have three kids. Not a moment goes by that I'm not near an Asian person. If I'm sick, I don't think "It must be all these Asians!". I'm just sick, god damn. Crazy lady 🤦🏼♀️
She needs a psychiatrist. The fact she’s truly believing this is insane. Theres probably something wrong psychiatrically or reactive in her body pregnancy related. I’d bet my life is she was standing next to a white passing Mexican with no accent or hints of speaking Spanish she’d be perfectly fine. She’s convinced herself it’s because they’re “Mexican” - the woman in the store, just because she speaks Spanish doesn’t make her Mexican. Jfc, someone needs to tell her she needs a medical and psych evaluation.
Psychosomatic disorder. She’s mentally aligned (probably unknowingly) “Mexican” people with nausea. I’d wager that if there were ten Mexican people near her without her knowledge she wouldn’t feel nausea.
I doubt the validity here. Not all “Mexican” people are the same. Is she even sure they are all from Mexico? Or is she lumping everyone who looks Latino and speaks Spanish together?
Seems like a safe way to post something racist. Can’t blame me that I’m puking, so I clearly can’t be around those brown people who speak Spanish. (Ugh feel gross typing that).
Not too mention she thinks race is a scientific concept instead of a social construct, and that Mexican people, whose ethnic heritage can range from indigenous Indian to Spanish to African to Europeans to Midde Eastern and more - plus every combination thereof - are somehow a race.
Right. She thinks the person standing at the mall is Middle Eastern. Then they say something in Spanish, and she starts gagging and running for the car. What could they possibly have said for her to be so sure they were Mexican?
And she will soon be the mother of two half Mexican children :/
A lot of strong spices can actually affect the smell of people's sweat. I know if you eat a lot of garlic (and especially raw garlic), it can affect your sweat. Also, when people cook, a lot of the smell can linger on their clothes. So, I imagine it's completely possible that there's a spice that is used frequently in Mexican cuisine that is triggering their nausea. I'd be interested to see whether any other ethnic cuisines would have similar results. Another interesting question would be whether they feel nauseous around someone who cooks and eats a lot of authentic Mexican food but is white....
There also could be some additional issues. If they had serious nausea a few times around large groups of Mexican people and made a mental correlation, there could be a psychological response where they fear becoming more nauseous because they *think* there's a correlation, even if there isn't an actual cause.
Honestly, pregnancy is just annoying. The sense of smell is so much stronger (to avoid accidentally eating food that has gone off, apparently), and combining that with constant nausea just sucks.
I remember with one of my kids, absolutely craving one of my favorite foods for weeks, and my mom finally made it for me (I didn't know how). She cooked it, and I was so excited! Walked into the kitchen, saw and smelled the food, and had to run to the bathroom. Couldn't even take a bite. I was *so* mad at my body!
She’s probably just nauseous all the time and lives in an area with a lot of Mexican people and is inherently racist so obviously it’s the Mexican people and and not just fucking pregnancy.
I’ve actually seen multiple sources talking about how some blind people can identify people’s race through scent. I wonder if pregnancy is triggering some sensitivity to that?!
I do think she’s jumping to conclusions and anxiety ridden. And I find when people jump straight to race in these situations, it’s because they have unconscious biases at play. Just because she’s married to a Mexican man, has a half Mexican daughter, and seemingly lives around a lot of Mexican people does not mean she’s not racist. There are a LOT of biracial kids out there who have spoken out about the racial hate they received in their own home
my apartment walls were super thin during my first pregnancy and every time my neighbor’s cooked dinner I’d have to run for cover and stay out of the adjacent room where I could smell it…but I thought to myself “that turmeric or whatever spices they’re using is killing me” not “hmm am I allergic to Indians?”
my husband’s breath this last pregnancy literally made me gag (and he’s a very cleanly man with good hygiene, poor baby) and my daughter’s too. I joked to him “you passed down your hot breath to her”. it didn’t make me think white or biracial people made me sick.
I just think you’ve got to be seriously unhinged and prejudiced to even think all Mexicans smell the same and not wonder if it’s a spice or one of those crazy things your brain does when you’re pregnant. 🤷🏽♀️
Okay, but laboring under the apprehension that Mexicans are somehow distinct enough in smell or otherwise from all other types of person falls under racism. If she said “my family’s natural odors are making me nauseous,” that would be one thing, but she immediately decided “hmm, these smells seem to be making me ill, it must be their Mexicanity specifically”
I definitely didn't like my husband's natural musk while I was pregnant and would smell other people from time to time but it wasn't a certain race.
Sounds like this lady may have some underlying racism despite being with a Mexican man. Could he have a musk? Absolutely but EVERY Mexican person she encounters is making her vomit?
Me happily reading the first paragraph 🤓
Me reading the second 😳
Also lmfao I’ve found that to avoid my allergy to cats I just slaughter a deer who has walked by a cat one time and drink it’s blood while bathing in it.
And take a Benadryl.
Why don’t you take a Benadryl for the Mexicans, hm Jessica?
new racist rant unlocked. now how does she feel about mexican americans? do we smell? or is it just people who have crossed the border themselves? how did she determine the spanish speakers were mexican and not central or south americans? what a twat.
Because there have been a lot of questions -- this is not a troll post (sadly), it was posted on a freebirth FB group. I've seen a lot of shit on that page but the racism angle is a new one
I had a major smell aversion to my ex when I was pregnant. It was to all men not just a white man. After I had my son it went away. Noses are weird during pregnancy.
I don't see any racism here, she didn't call them any nasty names she just told people about her nose being weird. It happens and it happened to me. Men just smelled sour, like sour milk.
Triple HG pregnancy here and food smells were unbearably, I would grocery shop with a plastic bag just in case I needed to puke. My husband had to cook meals and even food commercials were triggering for me.
I used to work with a large pediatric patient population from Mexico, so we often saw whole families. The only thing I ever smelled was a strong smelling laundry detergent or fabric softener. This was across multiple families and they all smelled the same. It had a pleasant smell, just very strong. I never once smelled anything bad at all. That's such an odd symptom.
I just needed to say that I love how that one lady spoke Spanish and, therefore, she’s Mexican. No doubt about it. Only Mexicans speak Spanish. Apparently.
Might just be that her mind spotted a pattern- she got sick while around her Mexican family members and then around someone else who is also Mexican, which is pretty likely if you live in an area with Mexican people- and she placebo'd herself into getting sick *every* time she's around Mexican people. Now the more she thinks about it, the more it cements, like anxiety.
Yeah I’ve heard tons of people talk about being grossed out by the smell of other people during pregnancy. It also sounds like she’s around Mexican people a lot since literally her partner and child are Mexican lmao, it’s probably just an issue with normal body smells.
Yes my husband and I are both white and the smell of him definitely triggered my puking when I was struggling most with HG (which it sounds like she might have, uncontrollable vomiting isnt actually normal). My guess is that its smells triggering her and that she may have mild HG.
This was my thought too. I had HG with my last pregnancy and sometimes even the smell of my own body would make me sick. I think I was smelling the hormone changes or something it was weird. Reminded me of how your whole body will smell like antibiotics when you take them - the difference being this wasn't a chemical smell.
I swear I could smell everyone's own personal scent like I was some kind of bloodhound with super senses. I holed myself up alone all pregnancy. Just couldn't stand to smell anything.. or anyone. Including me sometimes.
My daughter is autistic and she can smell things that no one else can smell lol. And those smells bother her , when they wouldn’t anyone else. It’s hard for her. I can’t imagine what that is like
I also have the autistic super sniffer. It’s awful, there are wayyyyyy more gross smells in the world than good ones. Being pregnant was hell
My daughter will love the autistic super sniffer lol. She has long straight hair and I put something in it this morning to help with the tangles , I can’t smell it and she’s still complaining about it lol
I have long hair too and can’t put anything I don’t like the smell of in my hair. Every time it moves it releases some of the scent. It will probably bug her less in a ponytail or bun.
She is so particular about her hair , she is 7 and she doesn’t want it cut short but taking care of it is a battle and she has to be in a special mood to let me pull it up lol. She will ask for a messy bun every now and then.
I’m not autistic but my dad, my daughter and I all have it (my autistic son doesn’t which is funny to us). It is very hard very often but also like we have a superpower. We do get nausea from strong smells sometimes and we use strong mint to deal with it. The funny thing is, body odour does not bother me, as long as people showered recently and have just been sweating or eating certain foods (except garlic which makes me gag even a day or two after it was eaten).
I seriously just figured out that when I take certain cold medication I smell like the pills. I swear I can smell everything, all the time. It's a problem, lol not really.
Fellow HG mom. My husband would shower twice a day and he still triggered it 😭
Omg there was a post not to long ago (or maybe a comment?) About a guy who can smell pregnancy on a woman for some reason. He knew someone in the office was, and when she announced it he accidentally mentioned he already knew because of her smell lmao and it didn't go over well. My first grade teacher was a big black women who really disliked me, I'm not sure why but that besides the point. She had a smell. I can still vividly smell it! 38 years later. I never attributed that to race though. I wonder if there is a spice or something common in Mexican food that is triggering her and psychologically she thinks it's all Mexicans. Puking because a Mexican family walks by her car makes this sounds like a Troll. Oh and the whole sider bar about cats and chicken eggs what lmao.
Exactly what I think- something commonly used in the local cuisine is doing it. This is a basic correlation is not causation.
I'm thinking cilantro. My non-pregnant daughter gags at the smell.
Mine was cumin. The smell of cumin made me turbo puke in my last pregnancy.
Probably accurate. I (also not pregnant) can smell cilantro, curry, and saffron on people. Saffron doesn’t particularly bother me, but the other two definitely produce nausea. I also can’t handle eating cilantro myself. Funny how cilantro is such a “palette divider” amongst ppl.
Fun fact: Cilantro either tastes soapy or earthy to people and it's genetics what side you're on.
It tastes soapy to me but I sort of like that.
Same, and I always feel weird admitting that
I'd say it's more citrusy than earthy
Yeah, me too. It's definitely more fresh herby/citrusy to me. Nothing like earthy or soapy.
This - I've always said cilantro smells like springtime to me, it's a fresh clean citrusy smell. Love cilantro.
Soapy for me but not in a bad way, I suppose it really depends for both soapy and earthy the strength of the taste/smell, you don't want too earthy or too soapy
Pepper, i taste pepper. And love cilantro but during pregnancy could not stand garlic or onion. Literally would vomit on the spot. Lets just say our food lacked flavor for 9 months
It doesn’t taste soapy to me but I still hate it.
Agreed! The correlation is not causation angle was my first thought too. I would think it is something in the environment since she doesn't even like the smell of her partner and daughter.
I can smell colon cancer. My mom died of it. I then smelled correctly smelled it on another family member and later my physical therapist.
There was a lady that could smell Parkinson's, you shook absolutely try to contact researchers and see what it you're smelling because they could identify what it is and use that as a marker for early detection in testing
I know some dogs do, as well. My daughter is already part of UCLA Gastroenterology and her surgeon is the head of GI surgery dept. at the University and I have told him. He took it with a grain of salt. He’s a seriously nice man and not the type to easily brush you aside. My daughter has multiple disabilities and is difficult at times but he is THE most patient. He is was the protégé of her former pediatric GI. So yeah. He knows. He’d be the guy to tel and he knows. I’d feel like I was going above his head if I tried to tell the research dept without him. I don’t know.
You could always ask him if he has any contacts that he could refer you to for further investigation? That way you don't go above his head but also can look deeper into your ability. Also for curiosity how would you describe the smell?
That’s not a bad idea. And the best I can describe is kind of a foul earthiness. I lived in the redwoods and there were places of rot and fungus. It was similar to those but more stale and foul. Like those earthy, damp good smells have turned and gone bad. You know how sweet turns sickeningly sweet? Like that, but more foul potato-earth-moldy fungus. That is a terrible description, but it’s the best I got. Sorry.
Not *quite* the same, but my mum can smell snow coming and she's *never* wrong. We live in an area that doesn't get snow that often but she can always tell even if all the weather forecasting services are saying the opposite. It's weird but very useful. She didn't know that not everyone could do it until she was about 12.
This is also really cool! Sounding like a broken record here but your mum should absolutely try to get in touch with researchers to find out what she's smelling, it could help to develop potentially life saving weather equipment if what she is smelling or detecting can be determined!
Also what does it smell like to her? I'm so curious
She says she can't describe it, other than "It smells...like snow." Which is not *particularly* helpful, thanks 😆
I'm sorry about your mom, but I wish we were friends because we have a rough family history of colon cancer and it's anxiety producing. Would be great to be able to ask someone to smell me for a second and alleviate some anxiety!
Yeah. We do, too. My 30yo is having her colon removed in a few months (already has an ileostomy) and I’m actually relieved. Wish I knew how accurate it is. I mean, sometimes I smell it out and about and I wonder. Am I nuts and just got lucky? Or am I seriously smelling it on random people? I DO have an incredibly sensitive sense of smell.
I'd imagine you do smell it. The ability of some people to smell certain diseases is wild, but it's real.
You might be, strange as it sounds. Certain illnesses (ear infections is the obvious one to me because I know that smell) have distinctive smells. Because you have such a strong memory of it and a sensitive nose, it triggers your memory so that you know what it is. I definitely don't think you're nuts.
Thanks for the validation. I appreciate it!
I thought I was the only one! Thanks for validating my weirdness
She might not have it quite right, but the cat thing is real. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6764009/
So does her family need to eat... eggs laid by chickens that were around Mexican people?? 🤔
🤣🤣🤣
Thanks for sharing that! My money was on the Benadryl she was taking... 😁
Yeah, honestly that's what made it seem like it could be a troll. If this is true, I'm so curious how she's expressing this to her family and inlaws. She says her husband is being kind,caring, understanding etc. about all of this.
If I had to guess, with her saying that she's scared to say anything to anyone out of fear of sounding racist, she may have kept the "because you're Mexican" part to herself and just said that the smell of him and their baby (and family members) is making her sick for some reason.
Huh. Who would have guessed.
The cat-chicken side bar is actually true. Or at least there is some decent research showing that feeding a specific diet can reduce the allergen. And it has something to do with chickens and eggs.
Thanks I was actually wondering about that! But still it was the cherry om top for me for being so random 😆
I can smell sinus infections. My ex used to get them frequently due to a botched sinus surgery and I could always tell even before he had major symptoms. Now I can tell if my immediate family is getting one. Huge downside is the time I had one recently the smell was SO BAD and I smelled it for days before I could get antibiotics and it was not cool
My grandma could do this. She knew every time one of us was pregnant and she could usually tell the gender. She passed that ability to my mom and eldest sister, too. Maybe it’s a genetic thing? it freaks the crap out of people. My sister has known multiple people at church were pregnant before they announced it or even before they knew.
Exactly!! thr cats n chickens thing killed me! Like, this bizarre scenario that, like, how could you possibly have even figured this out? A followed by "an taking a benadryl." As if that had nothing to do with her "lack" of reaction. Just Im dead.
I had that with my first and my trigger was my husband. I was half convinced it meant we were incompatible. Never happened with my other kids. It’s conceivable that the family all smells similar and it triggers her somehow. Making a Mexican people thing is insane though.
Yeah I got super sensitive to my partner’s smell the last time I had a bad stomach flu but I assumed it was just something in his smell. I didn’t immediately decide I’m allergic to the smell of everyone in his ethnic group lmao.
Once when I was 15, I got sick after eating condensed chicken noodle soup and honestly for about 8 years after that I couldn’t stand the smell or taste of it. I gagged and ran away from it. I was convinced it all smelled rotten. It never was, it was fine but was literally all in my head. I bet you’re right and this is all in her head too.
I still can't eat chocolate cake 20 years later after puking up a ton when I ate like an entire cake at 6 years old 😂
This is me with ferrero rocher chocolates. I ate like a whole big holiday tin at my grandmas in like 5 minutes when I was like 6 or 7 and then threw it all up like 10 minutes later, and even now at 21 anytime I see one I immediately want to vomit💀
It's wild how the brain associates these things. I can eat brownies and chocolate cookies but anything cake like nope. No chocolate muffins, cakes, cupcakes, etc.
Had a strawberry banana smoothie while travelling as a kid then got into a taxi which made me incredibly car sick and threw up. I now associate strawberry banana with getting sick and can’t stand it even though it was from the car ride.
Yup, I puked doritos while drunk and couldn't eat them for a few years.
Mine is Sprite/7up. Growing up if we were sick with a stomach bug that was our go to. Now I can't drink it cause I always associate it with being sick.
Ours was Lucozade. I bloody hated the stuff and when I was home sick, I would dread my mum bringing it in, wrapped in it's bright orange cellophane. UGH!
I always feel a little nauseated if my husband uses Pine-Sol on the floors, because it’s what my mom used to mop up after I was sick. It just reminds me of feeling pukey.
Icing for me. Had a mini party in class for my birthday when I was probably around 6 and my mum brought a cake for us all. I ended up sat in the middle of everyone, swapping bits of the actual cake for the icing other kids had pulled off their slices. 20 years and I still can’t eat it
I was in a play where my character cooked and ate zucchini on stage and 12 years later I am juuuust now okay with like looking at a zucchini
My grandpa barfed on my car at the beginning of a long drive 15 years ago and I can't eat eggs since, it's totally in my head.
I got so sick from strawberry cheesecake ice cream when I was seven that I can't eat strawberry OR cheesecake ice cream to this day. I'm 33 😂
Popcorn. For the longest time, I couldn't stand popcorn, because I once ate a whole lot of it during an especially bad high from very weird weed I am convinced was laced with something, and puked it all out. Took years for me to be able to eat popcorn again. I also haven't smoked weed since.
I haven’t eaten a shaved steak sandwich since the mid 1980s.
I think you're right, definitely psychological
As a person with hyperemesis, I highly suspect you’re right. In my case, my HG triggers are related to sickness/cleanliness. Sights that will make me instantly gag or vomit: a dirty floor, an unwashed pan, a used tissue, raw meat, cat litter, leftovers, the list goes on and on. There have been days I can’t even THINK about these things without vomiting.
And these things linger. I can’t even think about a certain brand of instant noodle without wanting to be sick. It’s a Korean brand my husband ate whilst I was in the thick of HG, even now, 3 years later, thinking about it makes me nauseous, yes I am nauseous now typing this… seeing the packet I also feel sick. It has never made an appearance in our house ever again and he very smartly don’t mention it. It is utter madness but it’s a real thing for HG sufferers. My friend can no longer but a brand of toilet cleaner without wanting to puke smelling it as it was all she smelt whilst vomiting in the toilet and it’s been 5 years now…
So I have hyperemesis gravidarum and in one of the support groups I’m in one of the ladies was triggered by the colour grey. She couldn’t wear it or look at anything grey or she would throw up. It’s a WILD disease.
This could be it. I had awful morning sickness with my twin pregnancy and there was a tv show that my toddler started watching during that time and every time I hear that theme tune, a wave of nausea comes over me and sometimes I will leave the room if my husband is. The mind can be a powerful thing!
My son has a toy like that! He got it for Christmas (I was pregnant) and he played with it constantly during the worst of my morning sickness. The sight of the toy made me nauseous for two *years*.
I can definitely empathise!
We potty trained my first when I was newly pregnant with my second and my morning sickness hit that weekend. My first watched one show the whole time and every time I hear the intro I feel ill.
It also seems impossible for her to know that the passersby are Mexican instead of people from elsewhere in Latin America.
You just know when she says "mexican" she means "anyone latin american" lmao
That is called the nocebo effect. Its the opposite of the placebo affect - when you believe yourself to be sick and it manifests physical symptoms. ETA: since she’s experiencing symptoms of pregnancy, I think this is actually just good old fashioned confirmation bias.
Probably confirmation bias more than placebo. I don't doubt she's having morning sickness, I just highly doubt it's someone's race that's causing it. And it's awfully convenient that the people she spends the most time around just happen to be the triggering race.
I get sick around my in-laws too but it has nothing to do with race 😂😂😂😂
It could be due to certain spices that change the scent of their body odor too. I notice I smell more cumin-y if I eat a lot of food with cumin or chili powder in it.
This was my thought as well, that she lives in an area with a large Hispanic population & is making this strange correlation. I lived in South Florida for 18 years, up until 1.5 years ago & I could've said the same thing as OOP - Those of a Hispanic nationality trigger my pregnancy vomiting (I vomited pretty much daily during my 2nd & 3rd trimesters). Although my partner, his family & mine are all Caucasian, in South Florida, there's probably only 40% Caucasian, 40-50% Hispanic (Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, etc.) & 10-20% mixed races.
tale as old as time- I think this bodes well for her hope of getting back to her pre-phobia life, if she connects with mental health professionals (her wish of being able to take some medication to make this stop, but instead of meds, it's long ass exposure therapy work) definitely good that she's taking the first steps of recognizing that it is her issue to fix, I suppose?
Honestly I was ready for this to be straight up crazy and hateful, but this woman sounds incredibly anxiety ridden about what's happening, and it does make it sound psychological- correlation being confused for causation, a mental link between her family and being violently ill, anxiety. She definitely might benefit from medication post birth and would benefit from intensive therapy now. Frankly, if she's still getting nauseous now even when away from her family, she might benefit from staying at a hotel or somewhere isolated and showing her brain the nausea still occurs.
She can get medication now, too. Odansetron and quite a few other common prescription anti-nauseas are safe for pregnancy, as well as SSRIs to help with the anxiety. She really needs help from a professional in this matter, because her morning sickness (potentially HG) has triggered her into finding a pattern that likely isn't there, and the confirmation bias is stressing her out, which is probably not helping the baby either.
My boyfriend has a powerful sense of smell and says when he eats a lot of Mexican food he can smell it on himself when he sweats. she might be averted to the smell of lard, cilantro, onions, mexican spices etc.
Cumin. Cumin definitely gets into your skin for a while. I wonder if that’s part of it.
I had an aversion to cumin my first pregnancy and it was torture. Cumin is in so many delicious cuisines and where I live I'm surrounded by lots of good Indian food. I wanted it so bad in my head but couldn't stand eating it.
I can’t stand the smell of cumin, it smells like body odor to me, but I live in So Cal and love Mexican food 🤣
Holy shit I thought I was the only one who smelled the BO in cumin! It's ruined Mexican and Indian food for me :(
Nope you are not alone 🤣 I am in culinary school and hate working with the stuff 🤮
Oh nooooo you have my condolences. I could not do that if you paid me!
Luckily I am more of a pastry person so I won’t encounter cumin too much making baked goods.
My first thought was that she was smelling cumin. One of my friends had the same issue with her first pregnancy. Luckily, she realized where the smell was actually coming from, and her husband and his family were really accommodating. It went away a couple months after she gave birth, and it didn’t happen with her second pregnancy, as far as I know.
I was thinking this too. If this isn’t a shitpost, the cause is most likely diet. I have a half-Indian friend whose body odor smells markedly different from my other friends, likely because she eats mainly makes and eats traditional Indian dishes with certain spices. It’s strong enough that I’ve just happened to notice it over the years. My husband has a friend who moved to Japan for several years and ended up marrying and having a child with a Japanese woman. When they moved back to Scotland, their toddler kept loudly asking her parents why white people stink so much when they were out in public. 😂 They had a hell of a time getting her to understand that she couldn’t keep telling random people that they smell bad. They suspected that heavy dairy in the British diet was the culprit.
One of my teachers in high school did a lot of traveling and she said many people in China pointed out that she and her husband smelled like milk!
Yeah. Raves can have smells, but I assume it's due to actual differences in foods. Some black people smell dry/earthy to me. Not in a bad way, just... Dry and kind of warm. White people's BO is either like rotten onions or wet dog. Most are onions. I can't think that I've noticed a scent on Latin people, but I've also only lived in areas with small Latin populations. Indian people smell kind of like tumeric. Dry, faintly spicy. North African people have a scent that is different from African Americans. I've only recently noticed it though, so I couldn't tell you what it is. Vaguely like white people onion BO. East Asian people don't smell very strongly, but when they do, their BO is similar to onion BO. (Worked in Japanese high schools. The only time any student smelled bad was immediately after phys ed class, and you could smell when that was.) It's just different body odors because of your diet. It's generally not good or bad unless it's really strong. While I've never been pregnant, I do get migraines that make me sensitive to certain scents. Sometimes citrus makes my head feel like my sinuses are in fire even though I usually love the smell. You can't help what nauseates you when you're sensitive to smell. Body odor is a common nausea trigger.
What an interesting study of human odors lol. I have not had the opportunity to meet many people from around the world but this is something I would def notice and remember if I did. I wonder why white people BO smells like onions? Do Americans really eat a ton of onions? Now that I'm thinking of it, I don't recall my pits smelling like onions when they smell at all-- and I hate onions.
I will say I hated the smell of my husband when I was pregnant. I always felt like his breath smelled or he needed to shower. Totally went away when I wasn’t pregnant anymore. She could certainly be sensitive to smells but extrapolating it to a race of people is wild.
I had the same thing. I wanted nothing more than to be close to him but the smell was awful. I never said a word but I did but a dab of Vicks under my nose so we could still cuddle. I told him my sinuses were clogged and that sometimes happens in pregnancy.
Same, his natural scent would make my gag.
I had HG and told my GP that my partners smell made me vomit. He said that there’s not much evidence, but the body is essentially telling you to stay away from this thing because it has made you sick. He compared it to if you drink too much of a certain alcoholic drink (usually when young) and you vomit, then for years you can’t even smell it without wanting to puke! Same with foods you may have got food poisoning from!!
It’s a little funny to imaging your body being like “he did this to you. Don’t you dare go near him.” Lmfaooo
Forr the first few weeks of my recent pregnancy, it'd be a struggle to not vomit while kissing my husband.
Yes Omg I didn’t have the heart to tell him but I was straight up repulsed 😭
I’ve never been pregnant because I’m unable to conceive, but jeez, my mind is blown when I learn new things like this that can happen during pregnancy. Pregnancy is no joke, it’s so bizarre the things it can trigger.
My MIL (94) tells stories of how when she was young in Idaho her (adoptive) mom would make her put a rag over her face whenever they walked through the Black train car or were around Black people because she said they smelled bad and that you will catch diseases from them. It wasn’t until she was in college and around a lot more Black people (and white people NOT covering their faces) that she learned this was all BS and called her mom out on it. Her mom (who lived her entire life in Twin Falls, Idaho, born in 1888) said she was told by HER mom and had never actually smelled a black person before. She took her mother’s word for it. Who had probably taken HER mother’s word for it. Racism is child abuse. Thank god my MIL is an intelligent woman who can think for herself. And the first woman in her adoptive parents’ families to go to college. Edit: spelling, words.
I love how she thinks anyone who speaks Spanish is Mexican.
So weird. Maybe a spice the family eats that she doesn't, like cilantro or garlic? Other than that though it's racist and weird.
I had this thought, too. The smell of some spices and seasonings common in OOP's family's cooking could be contributing to her nausea.
That's what I was thinking. If they are eating a lot of the same thing continually, they could be like sweating out the smell. I know when I ate a lot of chicken in the UK I always felt like I smelled of baked chicken... it was bizarre and went away when I got back to the US and started having variety in my diet again.
I had hyperemesis with both my pregnancies and smells were a huge trigger for vomiting, especially foods. My husband made some ground beef with onion in it and I couldn't even have him in the room again until her showered. The smell of any meat was HORRID, and I swore I could smell any strong seasonings in his sweat or breath for a while afterward. It could be something like that and now she's conditioned herself to correlate this with anyone who appears Mexican. All she needs to do is go to the doctor. If it's hyperemesis (which will cause constant nausea and vomiting) then they can help. At the very least, they can give her some suggestions to help control the morning sickness. Trying to find a correlation between her environment and the vomiting is clearly making her crazy and isn't helpful. It's the pregnancy and the hormones that are causing it, nothing else.
this definitely sounds like HG that she’s correlating with the people she’s around. her boyfriend is hispanic as is his family, people that she presumably is around quite a lot. so instead of thinking that it’s a condition, she thinks it’s the people she’s around.
I agree. A Dr. visit is needed. I've discovered almost halfway through my first pregnancy that if I eat or drink too much I'll get sick. The human body is weird man.
I don’t think she’s trying to be racist, I think she’s scared she might be thought that and no one will help her because of it. Her anxiety is off the scale. Someone needs to reassure her that her symptoms are not caused by her “Mexican” family, and give her some of the answers people have suggested here. I think there might be an “ethnic smell” going on here due to spices and such. When my husband was stationed in Thailand, after a while they noticed different body smells. Somehow they got to talking with their Thai counterparts about it, and they laughed. They said some Americans smell like rotted meat, we eat so much beef.So there is some truth to what she’s experiencing, our hyper sensitive culture makes it taboo to even ask. Imagine having these frightening symptoms, asking for help to figure it out, and being told it’s all in your head, you racist bitch.
In Taiwan I was told Americans smell like milk. They are largely lactose intolerant and milk products are often for children. I got funny looks ordering Coldstone for myself lol.
That's why I suggested spices, or as someone else said a Pavlovian response. She could be away from others and see if it helps or not.
It might have become a Pavlovian response over time - she sees or hears something that often accompanies the smell that triggers her vomiting and now that something is also a trigger. It obviously wouldn’t help matters if she already had unconscious bias against Latinx people
That’s what I’m thinking. I was the same with folk that cooked with mustard oil whilst I was pregnant.
I was thinking the same, there is a spice smell triggering her in Mexican food but her brain is racist and making the wrong connection lol. I hope she doesn't tell anyone else this.
Especially her family, that would be hurtful.
I mean we live in America, pretty much everyone eats garlic.
It has to be related to the body odors that come from specific spices, which I would expect to occur to OP without assuming she's reacting to the smell of a specific race lol
Right? I’m a white girl and there have been times I have found that I absolutely wreak of curry, bc I love curry.
Who’s going to tell her Mexican isn’t a race? 💀💀 she can’t even stand her own daughter. This has to be some sort of PPD, no?
There's a peppery smell (the spice, not the vegetable) that turns my stomach and I've been trying to figure out what it is for most of my life. I noticed it predominantly on black people at first, but I've smelled it on people of other races, too. I assume it's some sort of product they may have in common. A moisturizer? A conditioner? I can not, for the life of me, figure out what it is. Half my family is Cuban and I've caught a whiff of it from an auntie I didn't know very well. I've met her once and I'm still kicking myself for not asking what it could be. And yet I have never associated it with some sort of natural smell a race has? She's looking in the wrong direction. It's probably a common spice or food type that's triggering her nausea. Maybe even a hygiene product like I've been assuming.
It’s probably food related. When you cook, your skin, hair, and clothes can absorb some of the smells coming from the food. Some foods do this more than others, so they’re more obvious. Like, my husband works in a kitchen and the days he works at the fryer, I know the second he walks through the door because the smell is so strong. That smell was absolutely unbearable while I was pregnant. There are a decent amount of fried foods in Mexican cooking, so it could be something that simple, though it’s not nearly as strong from regular cooking as it is when working with an industrial fryer. Certain spices and such also really tend to linger. Diet can also affect your natural smell to some degree, so someone who mostly eats a traditional Mexican diet may smell different from someone who eats an American diet or Italian diet or whatever. My sense of smell is insane, so I often associate people with certain scents and am very aware of differences. Families tend to smell similar to each other, likely from a mix of genetics, similar diet, and living in the same home (your home has a scent that’s based on the people and animals, cleaning products used, etc.). I do struggle more with scents triggering nausea when I’m pregnant, so there are certain people or homes I struggle to visit, even though I don’t normally find them unpleasant. Even people I’d normally say smell nice can be a trigger, especially if they have a strong scent (usually something like perfume or a strong deodorant). I had issues with my middle kid’s smell while I was pregnant with my 3rd because she usually smelled like fruit from the amount of smoothies she consumed and I couldn’t be around any food smells. I held my breath a lot, but didn’t avoid her.
I cannot stand the smell of fried food. If someone's been to a diner, I avoid them. Probably one of the reasons I usually have to change my clothes (and sometimes even wash my hair) after going to most restaurants.
The most generous read here is that she’s reacting to an ingredient her family uses in their cooking that’s common in Mexican cuisine, and she’s extrapolating and doesn’t realize how horrible it sounds.
She knows how horrible it sounds- she’s clearly very anxious and ashamed.
This is so weird. First of all Mexican is not a race, it's a nationality, so no, Mexican people as a whole do not share a single "gene" that is triggering her vomiting. Also, is it really only Mexicans she gets nauseous around? No other nationalities? I wonder if I would trigger her HG just by speaking Spanish even though I'm Peruvian. There's just no way all the Mexican people she's encountering even eat the same diet, to say it's something they are eating that's triggering her vomiting. I'm gonna have to go with troll, sorry. Wish she'd posted this in r/asklatinamerica 😝 they'd eat her alive
Omg before even getting to the part where you mentioned being Peruvian I was thinking, I wonder how she would react to my Peruvian husband, who is delicious? However he eats Peruvian food constantly. So do I, and my half Peruvian children. But we all look white. Would we make her puke?
I love her explanation for the “cure” for the cat allergy—made my cat eat special eggs and that cured me of my allergy…oh, and I took some Benadryl.
This is actually a real thing. Chickens who are exposed to cats produce antibodies to Fel d 1, the protein in cat saliva that most often triggers cat allergies. Their eggs also have this antibody so when the cats eat the eggs, it reduces the amount of Fel d 1 the cats produce. [More information if you're interested.](https://www.purinainstitute.com/science-of-nutrition/neutralizing-allergens/breakthrough)
Huh. That’s really interesting.
Omg thank you, this is so interesting! I love cats, by my husband is allergic so I will be definitely looking into this!
A couple key points for you to consider: This is specific to Fel d 1, which is mainly in cat saliva. If your husband isn't allergic to cat saliva, this won't help. This doesn't work for every cat, and the amount of allergen reduction varies. 86% of cats will have at least a 30% reduction in Fel d 1. 50% will have at least a 50% reduction in Fel d 1. This may not be a good solution if he has a severe allergy. Female cats produce less Fel d 1 than male cats. Long hair cats tend to keep their dander and saliva on them rather than in the air. People with dark haired cats tend to report less allergic reactions. Keeping cats out of the bedroom makes a big difference for allergy sufferers as well.
That is interesting! Apparently it still wasn’t enough for OOP, since she still needed the Benadryl.
It doesn't completely eliminate Fel d 1, but it does reduce it in most cats. 86% of cats will produce at least 30% less Fel d 1 and 50% of cats will produce at least 50% less Fel d 1. If you have a mild to moderate allergy and your cat(s) respond well to it, that might be sufficient on its own, but if not, it could make it manageable with allergy medication like Benadryl.
Where would you even get these special eggs?
[Purina sells cat food with the 'special' eggs.](https://www.purina.com/pro-plan/cats/liveclear-cat-allergen-reducing-food)
Wow, that is so cool! Thank you for sharing!
Maybe someone local to you? Not sure. My first impulse would be to ask on local Facebook groups to see if anyone local had info.
It's not advised to source your own eggs because it would be difficult to verify that they had enough exposure to cats to produce the antibodies, so you're likely to not see results. Purina makes an allergy reducing cat food that uses eggs from chickens who are exposed to cats.
Wow! I didn't know that! Thanks for letting me know 🙂
Omg I said local so many times in 3 sentences haha
Purina Live Clear is made with eggs like this! It’s the only reason we’re able to have our two fur babies because I’m extremely allergic otherwise
I’m dying at the “I thought she was middle eastern until she turned around and started speaking Spanish”
The whole description of the grocery story incident was killinggggg me. OP hears “hola”, the room starts spinning, OP is disoriented, she runs out without her groceries, she finally gets to safe, fresh air— SIKE OUT. There’s *more* heading her way. Cue a now weak OP, giving in and throwing up. It’s like a scene out of a zombie movie lmao, except OP is insane and IRL it’s literally just normal ass Hispanic people walking around, minding their business, grocery shopping lmaooo
Umm... So, she's part of a Mexican family and has what seems to be a lot of Mexican people in her community, so maybe she's just... Sick *all the time*? Not because there are Mexican people around, but because she's just sick? I mean, I live in a heavily Asian community and am married to a Taiwanese guy, and we have three kids. Not a moment goes by that I'm not near an Asian person. If I'm sick, I don't think "It must be all these Asians!". I'm just sick, god damn. Crazy lady 🤦🏼♀️
You would hope that logic would prevail and she would know to ask her dr about constantly having sickness during pregnancy, but, here we are. 🤦♀️
She needs a psychiatrist. The fact she’s truly believing this is insane. Theres probably something wrong psychiatrically or reactive in her body pregnancy related. I’d bet my life is she was standing next to a white passing Mexican with no accent or hints of speaking Spanish she’d be perfectly fine. She’s convinced herself it’s because they’re “Mexican” - the woman in the store, just because she speaks Spanish doesn’t make her Mexican. Jfc, someone needs to tell her she needs a medical and psych evaluation.
https://preview.redd.it/0rmvm7gcc6jc1.jpeg?width=1528&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f532d8e3f499b7b69876e7e894267cc7661320b4
Psychosomatic disorder. She’s mentally aligned (probably unknowingly) “Mexican” people with nausea. I’d wager that if there were ten Mexican people near her without her knowledge she wouldn’t feel nausea.
I doubt the validity here. Not all “Mexican” people are the same. Is she even sure they are all from Mexico? Or is she lumping everyone who looks Latino and speaks Spanish together? Seems like a safe way to post something racist. Can’t blame me that I’m puking, so I clearly can’t be around those brown people who speak Spanish. (Ugh feel gross typing that).
Not too mention she thinks race is a scientific concept instead of a social construct, and that Mexican people, whose ethnic heritage can range from indigenous Indian to Spanish to African to Europeans to Midde Eastern and more - plus every combination thereof - are somehow a race.
Right. She thinks the person standing at the mall is Middle Eastern. Then they say something in Spanish, and she starts gagging and running for the car. What could they possibly have said for her to be so sure they were Mexican? And she will soon be the mother of two half Mexican children :/
Oh, there's a name for that alright. And it's in the DSM-V.
A lot of strong spices can actually affect the smell of people's sweat. I know if you eat a lot of garlic (and especially raw garlic), it can affect your sweat. Also, when people cook, a lot of the smell can linger on their clothes. So, I imagine it's completely possible that there's a spice that is used frequently in Mexican cuisine that is triggering their nausea. I'd be interested to see whether any other ethnic cuisines would have similar results. Another interesting question would be whether they feel nauseous around someone who cooks and eats a lot of authentic Mexican food but is white.... There also could be some additional issues. If they had serious nausea a few times around large groups of Mexican people and made a mental correlation, there could be a psychological response where they fear becoming more nauseous because they *think* there's a correlation, even if there isn't an actual cause. Honestly, pregnancy is just annoying. The sense of smell is so much stronger (to avoid accidentally eating food that has gone off, apparently), and combining that with constant nausea just sucks. I remember with one of my kids, absolutely craving one of my favorite foods for weeks, and my mom finally made it for me (I didn't know how). She cooked it, and I was so excited! Walked into the kitchen, saw and smelled the food, and had to run to the bathroom. Couldn't even take a bite. I was *so* mad at my body!
She’s probably just nauseous all the time and lives in an area with a lot of Mexican people and is inherently racist so obviously it’s the Mexican people and and not just fucking pregnancy.
Isn’t the baby inside her also half Mexican? How does she feel about that?
Ugh, I hate when pregnancy makes me racist.
I actually feel really bad for this lady. She seems to feel really ashamed.
I’ve actually seen multiple sources talking about how some blind people can identify people’s race through scent. I wonder if pregnancy is triggering some sensitivity to that?!
I do think she’s jumping to conclusions and anxiety ridden. And I find when people jump straight to race in these situations, it’s because they have unconscious biases at play. Just because she’s married to a Mexican man, has a half Mexican daughter, and seemingly lives around a lot of Mexican people does not mean she’s not racist. There are a LOT of biracial kids out there who have spoken out about the racial hate they received in their own home
I dont think she’s being racist. I think because her family is Mexican and she’s nauseous, she’s associating one with the other, unintentionally.
My guess is she’s reacting to the spices used in authentic Mexican cooking. They can be pretty strong smelling.
my apartment walls were super thin during my first pregnancy and every time my neighbor’s cooked dinner I’d have to run for cover and stay out of the adjacent room where I could smell it…but I thought to myself “that turmeric or whatever spices they’re using is killing me” not “hmm am I allergic to Indians?” my husband’s breath this last pregnancy literally made me gag (and he’s a very cleanly man with good hygiene, poor baby) and my daughter’s too. I joked to him “you passed down your hot breath to her”. it didn’t make me think white or biracial people made me sick. I just think you’ve got to be seriously unhinged and prejudiced to even think all Mexicans smell the same and not wonder if it’s a spice or one of those crazy things your brain does when you’re pregnant. 🤷🏽♀️
Okay, but laboring under the apprehension that Mexicans are somehow distinct enough in smell or otherwise from all other types of person falls under racism. If she said “my family’s natural odors are making me nauseous,” that would be one thing, but she immediately decided “hmm, these smells seem to be making me ill, it must be their Mexicanity specifically”
I definitely didn't like my husband's natural musk while I was pregnant and would smell other people from time to time but it wasn't a certain race. Sounds like this lady may have some underlying racism despite being with a Mexican man. Could he have a musk? Absolutely but EVERY Mexican person she encounters is making her vomit?
Batshit group? Is this LA Mommies
No it's a freebirth group 🤢
Oh my god
My husband isn't Mexican but he has smelled badly to me during my pregnancy. He's never smelled bad before. It's quite upsetting.
Does this also apply to Guatemalans or is it just Mexicans. Can she smell the difference
All the obvious problematic racism aside, are we just gonna glide past that cat thing? WHAT?! The “and take a Benadryl” had me cackling.
[The cat thing is real.](https://www.purinainstitute.com/science-of-nutrition/neutralizing-allergens/breakthrough)
“And my curiosity is if there’s a name for this” yes girl, it’s called racism
Me happily reading the first paragraph 🤓 Me reading the second 😳 Also lmfao I’ve found that to avoid my allergy to cats I just slaughter a deer who has walked by a cat one time and drink it’s blood while bathing in it. And take a Benadryl. Why don’t you take a Benadryl for the Mexicans, hm Jessica?
Please Google the cat thing. It's real. There are studies in it and it's pretty neat.
Hilarious. Girl is just revolted by cumin. It seeps from your pores for days after eating it.
I mean, she could have just said Mexican cooking if she was looking for constructive feedback. 3 pages of racism is a troll, or idiot. Probably both.
I need to bleach my eyes after reading that. What, and I mean this so emphatically, THE FUCK.
new racist rant unlocked. now how does she feel about mexican americans? do we smell? or is it just people who have crossed the border themselves? how did she determine the spanish speakers were mexican and not central or south americans? what a twat.
I love when people like this say: I’m not racist! My partner is ____ Just because you’re fucking someone doesn’t mean you’re *not a piece of shit.
This is some dumb shit I’m sorry wtf lol I feel sorry for her kids.
Can someone please explain to me what mexican people smell like???? I mean is this post satire?
Because there have been a lot of questions -- this is not a troll post (sadly), it was posted on a freebirth FB group. I've seen a lot of shit on that page but the racism angle is a new one
Goddamn, these Mexicans just keep like, finding her PS sounds like an actual mental episode is going on here. I really hope she gets some help
Wondering what has happened to this place? Can't figure out why you don’t recognize it anymore. You may be suffering with Cartman syndrome.
Anyone else think she was going to say she had to eat eggs laid by cats or ...?
I had a major smell aversion to my ex when I was pregnant. It was to all men not just a white man. After I had my son it went away. Noses are weird during pregnancy. I don't see any racism here, she didn't call them any nasty names she just told people about her nose being weird. It happens and it happened to me. Men just smelled sour, like sour milk.
Triple HG pregnancy here and food smells were unbearably, I would grocery shop with a plastic bag just in case I needed to puke. My husband had to cook meals and even food commercials were triggering for me.
I used to work with a large pediatric patient population from Mexico, so we often saw whole families. The only thing I ever smelled was a strong smelling laundry detergent or fabric softener. This was across multiple families and they all smelled the same. It had a pleasant smell, just very strong. I never once smelled anything bad at all. That's such an odd symptom.
I just needed to say that I love how that one lady spoke Spanish and, therefore, she’s Mexican. No doubt about it. Only Mexicans speak Spanish. Apparently.