Pregnancy: Dealing with morning sickness

What is morning sickness?

Morning sickness can range from mild, occasional nausea to severe, continuous, disabling nausea with bouts of vomiting. Symptoms may be worse in the morning, though they can strike at any time of the day or night.

Although its cause is poorly understood, morning sickness has been linked to increasing estrogen levels, along with other hormone changes during early pregnancy.¹

• The first signs of morning sickness usually develop during the month following the first missed menstrual period, when hormone levels increase.
• Women carrying twins or more have more pronounced hormone increases and tend to have more severe morning sickness.

There is no way of predicting how long your morning sickness will last, even if you have suffered through it before. Nausea and vomiting usually go away by 12 to 14 weeks of pregnancy. But in some cases, morning sickness can last well into a pregnancy.

Test Your Knowledge

1. If your mother had morning sickness for half of her pregnancy, you probably will, too.

1. True
2. False

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Author:	Shannon Erstad, MBA/MPH	Last Updated: November 30, 2006
Medical Review:	Renée M. Crichlow, MD - Family Medicine Kirtly Jones, MD - Obstetrics and Gynecology
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