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Science Morning sickness may protect fetus and mother
Science Morning sickness may protect fetus and mother | Morning sickness may protect fetus and mother |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Tuesday, 20 May 2008 | |
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Page 1 of 2 According to their paper in the July 2008 issue of American Naturalist, U.S. evolutionary biologists Samuel Melvin Flaxman, University of Colorado (Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.) and Paul Willard Sherman, Cornell University (Ithaca, New York, U.S.A.) state that not all pregnant women who give birth to healthy babies experience morning sickness. About two out of three have morning sickness, while the other one-third of pregnant women do not. However, it all cases both groups of women have healthy pregnancies and give birth to healthy babies. In the medical community, morning sickness is often called “nausea and vomiting in pregnancy,” or NVP. Two of the reasons for the occurrance of NVP, proposed in the past by the medical community, have been: to assist in healthy pregnancies and as a reaction to the pregnant woman and fetus sharing the mother’s bodily nutrients. However, neither one of these two possibilities seems to be valid. It was already stated where most but not all healthy women have morning sickness while pregnant with healthy fetuses. In the second possibility, scientists conjecture that if this was true (mother and fetus compete with body nutrients of the mother), then other mammal species would also get morning sickness. However, studies have shown this not to be the case. Other indications when morning sickness usually occurs is when a women smells, tastes, or sees certain foods such as meats and vegetables, along with alcohol and smoke from cigarettes. So, just what do Flaxman and Sherman think is happening when morning sickness occurs? Please read on. |
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