Nothing works for morning sickness, says review

Wednesday September 8th, 2010

Pregnant women who suffer from morning sickness have no reliable medical remedy to turn to, experts said today.

Morning sickness can occur at any time of the day and affects over half of all pregnant women, particularly in the first trimester. Drug treatments are limited due to fears over the impact on the foetus.

Non-drug approaches include eating often, consuming ginger tea or biscuits, eating plain food, or acupressure bands. There is little evidence that these methods work - but midwives say women can try them.

Researchers led by Dr Anne Matthews of the School of Nursing at Dublin City University in Dublin, Ireland, carried out a Cochrane review of the literature, which included 27 randomised controlled trials involving 4,041 women.

Six of the studies were on acupressure and two on acupuncture. These found no significant benefit, although one study of acu-stimulation did find an improvement. Ginger showed a limited benefit, as did vitamin B6, antihistamines and antiemetic (anti-vomiting) drugs, including Debendox - a combination of vitamin B6 and the sedating antihistamine doxylamine.

Dr Matthews says: "A number of the studies we looked at appeared to show benefits, but in general the results were inconsistent and it was difficult to draw firm conclusions about any one treatment in particular.

"We were also unable to obtain much information about whether these treatments are actually making a difference to women's quality of life."

She added: "Despite the wealth of different treatments available, it is not possible currently to identify with confidence any safe and effective interventions for nausea and vomiting in early pregnancy. The difficulties in interpreting the results of the studies highlight the need for further, more rigorous trials in this area."

Jane Munro, of the Royal College of Midwives, said the findings were "disappointing".

She said: "Given the distressing nature of morning sickness to so many women it is disappointing that there seems to be a lack of high quality evidence about the treatment available to counter it.

"However, as there is some limited evidence on the effect of ginger, acupressure and some antihistamines - as recommended in NICE guidelines - and Vitamin B6, women might still want to try these. Midwives and other health professionals should be aware of the weakness of the evidence and be careful to not to overstate their value."

Interventions for nausea and vomiting in early pregnancy. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2010 (in press).

Tags: Alternative Therapy | Childbirth and Pregnancy | Europe | UK News | Women’s Health & Gynaecology

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