Morning sickness

Morning sickness, also called nauseaand vomitingof pregnancy (NVP), or pregnancy sickness, affects between 50 and 95 percent of all pregnant women. It is also sometimes experienced by women who take birth control pillsor hormone replacement therapy.

When it occurs

Morning sickness is not confined to the morning: nausea can occur at any time of the day, though it most commonly occurs soon after waking, perhaps due to the fact that the stomach is empty at that time.

Morning sickness usually starts in the first month of the pregnancy, peaking in the 5th to 7th weeks, and continuing until the 14th to 16th week. For 50% of all sufferers, it ends by the 16th week of pregnancy.

Causes

There is insufficient evidence to pin down a single (or multiple) cause, but the leading theories include:

• An increase in the circulating level of the hormoneestrogen. Estrogen levels may increase by up to a hundredfold during pregnancy.
• Low blood sugar during pregnancy.
• An increase in progesteronerelaxes the musclesin the uterus, which prevents early childbirth, but may also relax the stomachand intestines, leading to excess stomach acids.
• An increase in human chorionic gonadotropin.
• An increase in sensitivityto odors.
• Eating vegetables. One theory is that the small amounts of toxinsvegetables produce to deter insectinfestationare normally harmless to humans but extremely dangerous to embryos; therefore, becoming nauseated during pregnancy was an evolutionarymeasure to protect the embryo. Other studies, however, have linked consumption of fruitsand vegetablesto higher birthweights, which tend to mean healthier babies.

Treatments

Treatments for morning sickness typically aim to lessen the symptoms of nausea, rather than attacking the root cause(s) of the nausea. Treatments include:

• Avoiding an empty stomach
• Eating five or six small meals per day, rather than three large ones
• Ginger, in capsules, tea, or in ginger aleor ginger beer^{[{{fullurl:Template:FULLPAGENAME}}#endnote_gingerb6]}
• Vitamin B6(either pyridoxineor pyridoxamine)^[1] sometimes taken in combination with the antihistaminedoxylamine
• Acupressureapplied to the P6 point on the inside of the forearm, one-sixth of the way from the wrist to the elbow
• Lemons, particularly smelling freshly cut lemons
• Fulfilling food cravings

A doctor may prescribe antinausea medications if the expectant mother suffers from dehydration or malnutrition as a result of her morning sickness.

Thalidomidewas originally developed and prescribed as a cure for morning sickness in Great Britain, but its use was discontinued when the drug's teratogenicproperties came to light. The United StatesFood and Drug Administrationnever approved thalidomide for use as a cure for morning sickness.

Associations with miscarriage risk

Studies have shown that women who suffer from morning sickness are less likely to have miscarriages, while other studies have shown that the majority of women who do miscarry had multiple pregnancy symptoms including pregnancy sickness. Some doctors refute the claim that lack of morning sickness indicates an increased risk of miscarriage. They claim the mother's sensitivity to the changes in her body is not a variable that indicates risk of miscarriage. It is also mentioned that many women having a molar pregnancyor an ectopic pregnancysuffer strong nausea.

External links

• Intelihealth: Easing the Queasies
• WebMD: How can I manage morning sickness at home?
• An Adaptionist Approach to Pregnancy Sickness
• Morning Sickness
• PamperingMom.com -Morning sickness remedies and so much more!
• - Your Perfectly Pampered Pregnancy: Beauty, Health and Lifestyle Advice for the Modern Mother-to-Be by Colette Bouchez - Broadway Books, 347pp, ISBN 0767914422de:Schwangerschaftserbrechen

Notes

Notes

1. ^  ^{{qif

|test={{{3|none}}}
|then={{qif
 |test={{{{{{3|}}}}}}
 |then=^
 |else={{{3|}}}
}}
|else=a}}  Pregnancy Morning Sickness - Ginger as Effective as Vitamin B6 (open)Effectiveness and Safety of Ginger in the Treatment of Pregnancy-Induced Nausea and Vomiting (subscription), Borrelli et al.,  Obstetrics & Gynecology, 2005;105:849-856, a meta-studyof three databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library), including only double-blind, randomized controlled trials

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the Wikipedia article Morning sickness.