We may now know what the cause of morning sickness is. And knowing the cause could lead to a new treatment for the affliction, this according to a group of researchers from the University of Cambridge in England, among other universities.
The scientists attributed the cause of morning sickness to a hormone produced by the fetus – a protein known as GDF15. But, they add, the degree of sickness she feels depends on a combination of how much of the hormone is produced by the fetus and how much exposure the mother had to this hormone before becoming pregnant.
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According to the Mayo Clinic, morning sickness is most common during the first three months of pregnancy. It typically starts before nine weeks. Symptoms usually improve by the middle or end of the second three months of pregnancy.
Nausea, with or without vomiting, is common in pregnancy. Morning sickness is often brought on by smelling certain odors or eating certain foods.
Rarely, morning sickness is so bad that it turns into hyperemesis gravidarum. This is when the nausea and vomiting cause serious fluid loss or loss of more than 5% of pre-pregnancy body weight. Hyperemesis gravidarum might require going to a hospital for treatment.
Professor Sir Stephen O’Rahilly who led the study said, “Most women who become pregnant will experience nausea and sickness at some point, and while this is not pleasant, for some women it can be much worse – they’ll become so sick they require treatment and even hospitalisation.”
“We now know why,” he added, “the baby growing in the womb is producing a hormone at levels the mother is not used to.
Professor O’Rahilly added that the more sensitive a woman is to this hormone, the sicker she will become.
“Knowing this gives us a clue as to how we might prevent this from happening,” he said. “ It also makes us more confident that preventing GDF15 from accessing its highly specific receptor in the mother’s brain will ultimately form the basis for an effective and safe way of treating this disorder.”
The researchers studied data from women recruited to a number of studies, including at the Rosie Maternity Hospital, part of Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Peterborough City Hospital, North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust. They used a combination of approaches including human genetics, new ways of measuring hormones in pregnant women’s blood, and studies in cells and mice.
They showed that the degree of nausea and vomiting that a woman experiences in pregnancy is directly related to both the amount of GDF15 made by the fetal part of placenta and sent into her bloodstream, and how sensitive she is to the nauseating effect of this hormone.
GDF15 is made at low levels in all tissues outside of pregnancy. How sensitive the mother is to the hormone during pregnancy is influenced by how much of it she was exposed to prior to pregnancy – women with normally low levels of GDF15 in blood have a higher risk of developing severe nausea and vomiting in pregnancy.
