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Turns out morning sickness has an upside.

And if it is all-day sickness… then you are clearly winning.

In news that might just make you queasy thinking about it, turns out that morning sickness may be beneficial.

A Canadian study published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology has shown that women who suffered morning sickness have lower rates of miscarriage (3 times lower than women who didn’t experience morning sickness). The study looked at data from 850,000 pregnant women in 5 countries.

It also found that babies born to mothers who had morning sickness were less likely to have birth defects, be born prematurely, or be small or have a low birthweight.

They were also smarter – scoring higher on IQ tests (and language and behaviour tests) when aged between three and seven years.

And bonus points were scored to women 35 or older with morning sickness who benefited from the so-called protective effects.  

The findings also checked out whether drugs to mitigate morning sickness had any negative effect on the protective features of feeling nauseous – and it didn’t.

The findings also looked at the impact of drugs to mitigate nausea and vomiting and but found they they did not alter any positive effects associated with morning sickness.

Morning sickness affects 85% of pregnant women and is caused by a rapid increase in gonadotropin (a hormone released by the placenta).

How did you combat morning sickness?

CLICK THROUGH this gallery of ingenious morning sickness cures.

Want more? Try:

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