Extreme morning sickness could lead to lifelong behavioral and emotional problems in children, according to a new study.

The condition, known as hyperemesis gravidarum (HG), is characterized by excessive nausea and vomiting persisting beyond the first trimester of pregnancy. It affects hundreds of thousands of women each year and can lead to hospitalization and pregnancy termination.

California researchers have found that children whose mothers suffered from HG while carrying them were more than 3 times as likely to suffer from anxiety, bipolar disorder and depression in adulthood than children born to mothers who did not have the condition.

“HG is an understudied and undertreated condition of pregnancy that can result in not only short-term maternal physical and mental health problems but also potentially lifelong consequences to the exposed fetus,” the researchers said.

Prior studies have found that children whose mothers suffered from nausea past the first trimester have more attention and learning studies by age 12.

The researchers blame poor fetal nutrition, a frequent result of HG, as a cause for adverse outcomes and poor health in adulthood. HG can essentially starve the developing fetus of essential nutrients, and cause dehydration, which can impact brain development.

Also, HG often causes stress and anxiety in the mother, which can also negatively affect the fetus.
The condition often runs in families. According to the researchers, women with a family history of the condition were up to 17 times more likely to suffer from it themselves.

The study was published in the Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease and funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

The risk of miscarriage more than doubles for women who take anti-inflammatory drugs, some of which are available over-the-counter, during early pregnancy, according to a new study.

Researchers report that any type or dosage of non-aspirin, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) can increase the risk of miscarriage up to 2.4 times. These drugs include naproxen, ibuprofen, diclofenac and celecoxib.

Canadian researchers looked at nearly 5000 cases of miscarriage, which included 352 women who took non-aspirin NSAIDs.

Compared to women who did not take NSAIDs during early pregnancy, the women who did take NSAIDs alone or in combination were 2.4 times more likely to spontaneously miscarry.

The highest risk was associated with diclofenac alone and the lowest risk was associated with rofecoxib alone. Dosage did not appear to affect risk.

Prior research has found that taking non-aspirin NSAIDs during pregnancy can increase the risk of major congenital deformations.

“Non-aspirin NSAIDs should be used with caution during pregnancy,” the study researchers recommended.

The study was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Voices can reveal a lot about a person, like age, gender or mood. However, new research challenges previous assertions that women’s voices can broadcast certain cues to men about how close they are to ovulation.

While prior studies have merely studied women’s voices in two phases: high conception risk vs. low conception risk, this latest study looked at the variation in women’s voices through their entire menstrual cycle.

The results indicated that women do speak with the highest tone just prior to ovulation (which some studies have associated with attractiveness); however, just after ovulation the tone raises again to levels indistinguible from pre-ovulation, making voice a very poor mating cue.

Furthermore, men involved in the study showed only a very slight preference for pre-ovulation voices compared to voices recorded during ovulation.

The study researchers therefore concluded that women’s voices do not provide reliable information about reproductive timing.

The study was published in the journal PLoS ONE.

A Council of Europe committee has drafted a resolution that could keep parents from finding out the gender of their child before birth, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The committee speculates the resolution will prevent some parents from “selectively aborting” based on whether the child is a boy or a girl.

Gender can be determined through an ultrasound at 14 to 16 weeks. It is up to the government to decide when abortions can be performed, but most abortion laws allow procedures within that time frame, if not later.

However, parenting groups are questioning why the practice should be implemented in Europe, where selective abortion is not nearly as prevalent a problem as it is elsewhere.

Before any further discussion, I want to make it clear that this practice could not be implemented in America according to present medical laws. Any documented medical data done on a patient here immediately becomes the patient’s property.

As far as the resolution being applied in Europe, it could happen, but I definitely do not agree with it.

Certainly, cases exist where parents specifically want an ultrasound so they can consider sex selection, but the practice of withholding information from a patient chips away at the very foundation of a doctor-patient relationship.

Essentially, it violates the ethics we as doctors swear to uphold, which emphasize honesty and informed consent.

Not only that, but it can be vital for parents to know the sex of their child, because there are sex-related genetic illnesses that can run in families, such as Duchenne’s and Becker’s muscular dystrophies, which are passed from mother to son.

European legislators need to consider these matters carefully in deciding whether or not to implement any laws that will most likely damage the doctor-patient relationship and perhaps even cause excess stress for parents-to-be.

For the first time, scientists have identified the point in development at which infants appear to be able to differentiate between pain and basic touch.

British researchers report that infants can distinguish painful stimuli from general touch at 35 to 37 weeks of gestation, just before birth.

Because infants cannot report whether they feel pain or not, the researchers based their findings on recordings of brain activity by electroencepholograpy (EEG).

The EEG recordings, taken between 28 to 45 weeks of gestation, showed that infant brains began to produce distinct responses to pain – in the form of a clinically essential heel lance – and general touch around the time the pregnancy reached full-term at 37 weeks.

Due dates, in turn, are based on 40 weeks of pregnancy.

The results may have implications for the treatment, care and development of premature newborns, according to the researchers.

They also added that, interestingly, these children often grow up to be either more or less sensitive to pain than usual.

The study was published in the journal Current Biology.

Prenatal exposure to phthalates, a class of chemicals that are widely used in consumer products ranging from plastic toys to building materials to shampoo, may put children at increased risk of developmental problems, according to a new study.

Recent studies in pre-school children have found that prenatal phthalate exposure may lead to mental, motor and behavioral problems.

One study followed 319 non-smoking, inner-city pregnant women and measured their exposure to phthalates through urine tests. The researchers followed up with developmental tests on the children three years later.

The results indicated that higher prenatal exposure to pthalates significantly increased the odds of motor delay and behavior problems, including anxiety, depression and withdrawal. Among girls, phthalates were associated with decreases in mental development.

The women in the highest exposure group had double, sometimes triple, the odds of having a child with developmental delays compared to the women in the lowest exposure group.

“The results add to a growing public health concern about the widespread use of phthalates in consumer products,” said Robin Whyatt, DrPH, study researcher.

While the researchers are still uncertain as to how pthalates affect the developing brain, they do know that the chemicals are endocrine disrupters, meaning that they affect the hormone system in the body. Prior research suggests pthalates affect thyroid function, as well as lower testosterone, which plays a critical role in brain development.

The study was published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.