Photo Credit: Getty Images
Let’s be honest here: Morning sickness blows. First of all, pregnancy-induced queasiness is hardly limited to the pre-noon window, so there’s that. Plus it’s hard to imagine growing an entire person inside your body -- which you must do through the glorious intake of copious amounts of food -- when you can’t even stomach the sight of a Saltine cracker.
But, it turns out all of that retching and heaving might just have a nifty little payoff: New research confirms that pregnant women who are crippled by morning sickness (or all-day-every-day-sickness, as I like to call it) are less likely to miscarry than gals who sail through gestation feeling fabulous. And the good news doesn’t end there: The sicker you are, and the longer you feel like crap, the greater risk protection you experience. The very best part? The oldest women in the study who felt the lousiest had the rosiest outcomes of all.
The researchers concluded that nausea and successful pregnancies were linked, although they couldn't establish a clear cause-and-effect relationship between the two. (The speculation is that nausea can keep you from eating massive quantities of junk, and vomiting may help expel bodily toxins that could harm the fetus.) The study authors also were eager to point out that pregnant women shouldn’t panic if they’re not puking (or dry heaving) all over the place, stressing that symptoms vary from pregnancy to pregnancy, even for the same woman.
So if you’re pregnant and are feeling the urge to purge, remember, you’re doing it for your baby. Could there be a lovelier way to kick off the next several decades of sacrifice?
What helped your morning sickness? Chime in below!
