30 Jun Pregnancy: It’s Not Just ‘Morning’ Sickness

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Prof Roger Gadsby MBE
Honorary Associate Clinical Professor
Warwick Medical School
University of Warwick

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: The term “morning sickness” is widely used to describe the nausea and vomiting symptoms that occur in pregnancy. Previous research has reported that symptoms can occur both before and after midday but little has been published describing the daily and weekly pattern of symptoms.

MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings?

Response: Using a database of 256 women who kept daily symptom diaries from the onset of symptoms till around 7 weeks of pregnancy, the study modeled the daily symptom patterns and changes in daily patterns by week of pregnancy. Nausea occurred throughout the day. Vomiting had a defined peak in the morning, but can occur throughout the day

MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?

Response: Using the  term “morning sickness” is inaccurate, simplistic and therefore unhelpful. It should be called “nausea and vomiting of pregnancy (NVP) . 

MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work?

Response: It will be important to see if the healthcare professionals, the media and the general public  move away from using the term “morning sickness” .

Further research on the timing of the onset of NVP symptoms from this dataset will be published in another paper. 

MedicalResearch.com: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Response: I have been involved in research into NVP for around 40 years. I helped, to set up the charity Pregnancy Sickness Support  (www.pregnancysicknesssupport.org) in 2002 to offer information and support to sufferers

Citation:

Nausea and vomiting in pregnancy is not just ‘morning sickness’: data from a prospective cohort study in the UK

Roger Gadsby, Diana Ivanova, Emma Trevelyan, Jane L Hutton and Sarah Johnson
British Journal of General Practice 29 June 2020; bjgp20X710885. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp20X710885

https://bjgp.org/content/early/2020/06/29/bjgp20X710885

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Last Updated on June 30, 2020 by Marie Benz MD FAAD