Strollerderby

Sick in the Morning? Your Kids Will Thank You

Posted by JeanneSager

Who knew one day I'd do a happy dance over seven months of throwing up and two trips to the emergency room? According to a new study in the Journal of Pediatrics, moms should be embracing morning sickness - it means we're bound to pop out smarter babies. 

Take that Ms. "Oh, I loved pregnancy, I never threw up, never even had an upset tummy."

The study was commissioned to look at the affects - if any - of anti-nausea drugs in pregnancy, and there's good news there too. Scientists found that mothers who took diclectin during their pregnancy to fight their morning sickness were not endangering their kids' mental acuity. That in and of itself is important news for doctors, who find that mothers who are suffering from morning sickness are loathe to take anything for fear of hurting their fetus. 

But as Dr. Gideon Koren, director of the Motherisk Program, at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and one of the study's authors, points out, morning sickness can have debilatating affects on a mother. See above - two trips to the ER and seven months of loafing about miserably sick (see also - why I'm only having one child!). 

Whether parents took the drugs or not, the researchers found the kids coming out of cranky sick moms were scoring higher on tests of IQ (yes, I know, a very imperfect system) and mental acuity. This goes along with the good news that women who suffer morning sickness are less likely to miscarry and less likely to have babies with cardiovascular problems.

So moms, carry that barf bag proudly. You're baking a little genius in your oven.

Image: growinstyle

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Comments

 

Marj said:

Fantastic!  I has morning, noon and night sickness for most of my first trimester.  The two boys in my belly should be really smart - or maybe one is average and the other is a genius.

April 24, 2009 10:19 PM
 

Twyla said:

I have had no puking in any of my pregnancies and my children are very smart and no defects to mention. So, I guess I break the mold. Wait, I puked 3 times with my oldest. Does that count?

April 24, 2009 11:29 PM
 

Sheri said:

Really???  I puked like a crazy woman all friggin day and most of the evening for over 6 months with my first pregnancy.  That child is on the autism spectrum and has an IQ of 80.  So those researchers can kiss the fattest part of my large arse!!!

April 25, 2009 9:18 PM

About JeanneSager

Jeanne Sager is a writer who lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter, a dog and too many cats. She refuses to believe motherhood comes with pumpkin appliqued sweaters, and she';s not ready to apologize for having only one child. She writes about raising her kid in her own hometown and the mom stuff she's not embarrassed to own at her blog, Inside Out (http://jeannesager.blogspot.com), she's contributing editor of Grand Magazine, and she's a regular essayist here on Babble

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