Why morning sickness may be a good thing
Often called morning sickness, is associated with a lower risk of miscarriage in pregnant women, the medical research agency said in a press release on Monday. PHOTO | FILE
What you need to know:
- By the eighth week of pregnancy, 57.3pc of the women reported experiencing nausea and 26.6pc reported nausea with vomiting. The researchers found that these women were 50 to 75 pc less likely to experience a pregnancy loss, compared to those who had not experienced nausea alone or nausea accompanied by vomiting.
A new analysis by researchers at the National Institutes of Health in the US has provided the strongest evidence to date that nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, often called morning sickness, is associated with a lower risk of miscarriage in pregnant women, the medical research agency said in a press release on Monday.
“It’s a common thought that nausea indicates a healthy pregnancy, but there wasn’t a lot of high-quality evidence to support this belief,” said the study’s first author, scientist Stefanie N. Hinkle. “Our study evaluates symptoms from the earliest weeks of pregnancy, immediately after conception, and confirms that there is a protective association between nausea and vomiting and a lower risk of pregnancy loss.”
For their study, titled Association of Nausea and Vomiting During Pregnancy With Pregnancy Loss, Dr Hinkle and her colleagues analysed data from the Effects of Aspirin in Gestation and Reproduction (EAGeR) trial, in which researchers had tested whether taking daily low-dose aspirin prevents women who experienced one or two prior pregnancy losses from experiencing a future loss.
The authors looked at data from all the women in the study who had a positive pregnancy test. The women kept daily diaries of whether they experienced nausea and vomiting in the second through the eighth week of their pregnancies and then responded to a monthly questionnaire on their symptoms through the 36th week of pregnancy. In the EAGeR trial, a total of 797 women had positive pregnancy tests, with 188 pregnancies ending in loss.
By the eighth week of pregnancy, 57.3pc of the women reported experiencing nausea and 26.6pc reported nausea with vomiting. The researchers found that these women were 50 to 75 pc less likely to experience a pregnancy loss, compared to those who had not experienced nausea alone or nausea accompanied by vomiting.
The study is in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
