For Some, 'Morning Sickness' Feels Like Death

For millions of present-day pregnant women around the world, the quaint term "morning sickness" just doesn't cut it. Abi Stephenson was one of them while expecting her daughter, she writes in the Guardian. "Like the night when I was 24 weeks pregnant and even after chemotherapy-grade nausea medication, vomited so many times in rapid succession that I wondered if this was it, if death was coming for me and my baby both," she writes. Stephenson and her daughter survived. She was one of an estimated 3% of women diagnosed with "hyperemesis gravidarum, or HG—that is, not the garden-variety morning sickness of the first trimester, but what is considered to be excessive vomiting that can last for the duration of the pregnancy."

What is only now becoming clear is that the condition isn't just dangerous for the pregnant mother but for the development of her baby as well. The story runs through the history of treatment—which was largely patronizing, futile, and even dangerous (think thalidomide) for more than a century—and how there is now finally hope thanks to a breakthrough discovery of the hormone thought to be the culprit. She describes geneticist Marlena Fejzo as "HG's unofficial Avenger" because of her pioneering work and points out a wrenching twist: Fejzo also suffered from HG while pregnant, but her own doctor shrugged off the problem. The scientist then "lost her baby to chronic starvation in the second semester." Read the full story, which notes that over-the-counter remedies based on the new research may still be years away.