Morning sickness 'leads to smart kids'

Source: The Straits Times, 25th April:

Suffering morning sickness during pregnancy may lead to smarter children, a new study suggests.

Researchers, at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children's Motherisk programme have discovered that nausea and vomiting during pregnancy appears to be linked to enhanced neuro-development of the foetus.

For the study, 121 pregnant women were recruited between 1998 and 2003 through a morning-sickness hotline run by the hospital.

Participants were split into three groups: mothers who experienced morning sickness and were treated with diclectin (a drug used to treat nausea and vomiting during pregnancy); those who experienced morning sickness and did not take diclectin; and those who did not experience morning sickness.

The intelligence and behaviour of their children were assessed at age three and again at age seven through age-appropriate phychological tests.

The mothers' IQ, health and socio-economic status were also noted.

The study found that all children across the three groups scores within the normal range for neuro-development outcome. But the children of women with morning sickness scored higher on performance IQ, verbal fluency, phonological processing and numerical memory.

The more severe the morning sickness, the more likely the children were to earn higher scores, the researchers found. They noted that material IQ also played a role in the outcome.

The results are posted in the online edition of The Journal of Pediatrics.

Morning sickness, which affects some 80 per cent of pregnancies, is known to be a sign of a healthy pregnancy, as women who suffer from it are less likely to miscarry and less likely to give birth to babies with congenital cardiovascular problems.

This is the first study to look at the long-term effects of nausea on the cognitive skills of babies.