Morning Sickness Linked to Smarter Babies
Children born to mothers who have morning sickness may be smarter than those whose moms don't have nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, suggests a new study.
Researchers found that the children of mothers with morning sickness scored higher on tests designed to assess children's IQ and mental acuity, the Canadian Press reported.
But while this difference was statistically significant, it doesn't mean that children born to mothers who didn't have nausea during pregnancy are developmentally slow, said senior author Dr. Gideon Koren, director of the Motherisk Program at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. It's just that the other children scored higher on the tests.
The study appears in the Journal of Pediatrics.
Nausea has long been recognized as a sign of a healthy pregnancy, according to the CP. Pregnant women who have morning sickness are less likely to have a miscarriage and less likely to have babies with congenital cardiovascular problems.
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This would reinforce another idea I've heard that morning sickness is the body's way of protecting the baby during those vitally important early days of development. It makes me wonder what the effects of some of the drugs used to abate severe morning sickness might be on the baby - do we lose that *one up* in a baby's neurodevelopment?
http://www.MorningSicknessCompanion.com
July 22, 2010 - 7:49pmThis Comment