“There has to be some benefit to this!” You may be thinking as you are huddled up in the bathroom feeling absolutely awful, nauseous and in the grip of another bout of morning sickness.
The good news is a guarded “Yes!”
National figures typically indicate that approximately 70% of women will suffer from morning sickness symptoms during early pregnancy, but in some larger studies the figure has actually been up to 90%.
Nausea is far more common than vomiting, with one large US study of 2,300 pregnant women showing that while 90% suffered from nausea, that (only) 53% suffered from both nausea and vomiting.
The study found that overall women who had neither vomiting nor nausea during the first trimester of their pregnancy were 3.2 times more likely to miscarry, then the women with morning sickness. And that pregnant women over 35 who had morning sickness for at least half of their pregnancy were 80% less likely to have a miscarriage than the same age group who didn’t have morning sickness.
The reason that the answer to the question of whether or not nausea means a healthy pregnancy is because in itself there has been no proven causal link between the two. It is simply that nausea is actually indicative of a “normal” pregnancy, not that nausea means you will have a healthy pregnancy.
There are some women (lucky souls) who sail through their pregnancies without symptoms of morning sickness, nausea or vomiting and yet still have perfectly healthy babies. So if your pregnancy all seems to be going remarkably smoothly without any undue nausea or other symptoms of morning sickness, then there is no need to panic.
It may be worth visiting your Doctor to have a blood test for the levels of the hCG hormone. This typically doubles within a few days of becoming pregnant, and the levels of hCG in the blood stream are often taken as a potential indicator of how well the pregnancy is progressing and whether or not there is any increased chance of miscarriage.
This is especially true if you are an older mother (over 35) and are not experiencing any signs of morning sickness. It could well be that you are simply lucky. But it is well worth talking to your Doctor because the US Study found that women over 35 with no morning sickness, nausea and vomiting were 12 times more likely to miscarry than their nauseous contemporaries.
If in doubt, stay safe and visit your Doctor.
422 words.