Page 40 - April Issue

on the way | discomfort

Can morning aNnmbadeotlsui“tievfcShrvokeooeoe’nrsmmdset-isewhtsbaia”nroan.te.gryd.sniestaeohobrfMefacilhb“lnpmenoiraertesosohustrsseefn.ercr”ationinmgg
sickness
actually be
good for you?

Morning sickness. It’s the bane
of many of a pregnancy.And
many a future mother wonders
at the apparently unnecessary
suffering. But, it turns out, there’s
meaning to the misery.Two
evolutionary biologists report that
morning sickness protects both
the pregnant woman and the
developing embryo just when the
foetus is most vulnerable.

mother, baby & child April 2011 W hen Jane found out by two-thirds of pregnant serves a beneficial function.
she was pregnant, women is Mother Nature’s The finding helps explain why
she and her husband way of protecting mothers and many pregnant women develop
were ecstatic. She was fine until babies from food-borne illness, an aversion to meats, as well
the second week and says, “I and also shielding the baby as to certain vegetables and
knew about morning sickness from chemicals that can deform caffeinated beverages, in early
but didn’t realise it would be foetal organs at the most critical pregnancy and prefer bland-
this bad! I can’t be around time in development. This tasting foods instead.
perfume, meat, and the sight conclusion was drawn by two
of chicken makes me queasy! Cornell University evolutionary Why
Even drinking a glass of water biologists who examined the
can be hard at times; when will outcomes of thousands of “Morning sickness’ is a
this nauseating, daily vomiting successful and unsuccessful complete misnomer,” says
and stomach churning ever go pregnancies. In the June 2000 Sherman, professor of
away?” issue of The Quarterly Review of neurobiology and behavior at
Biology, Samuel M Flaxman and Cornell and co-author of the
Research Paul W Sherman reported that report, “Morning Sickness:
NVP (which stands for “nausea A Mechanism for Protecting
As unpleasant as it is, some and vomiting in pregnancy,” Mother and Embryo.” “NVP
researchers believe that as morning sickness is known doesn’t occur just in the
the nausea and vomiting of in the medical world) actually morning, but at any time during
“morning sickness” experienced the waking hours, and it’s not

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