Morning sickness remedies don’t add up
Nausea and vomiting during pregnancy can be a nightmare for women. Some cases of the inaptly named “morning sickness’’ are so severe that the women are hospitalized.
When the less serious but still distressing version strikes them day or night for weeks, women may hesitate to take anti-vomiting drugs, fearing for the safety of their babies. Alternative medicine, with its “natural’’ aura, may be more appealing than conventional medications, so reviewers from the Cochrane Collaboration set out to evaluate the scientific evidence for a range of remedies.
Anne Matthews of Dublin City University led a team that pooled the results of 27 randomized clinical trials involving more than 4,000 women early in pregnancy. Some trials examined acupuncture or acupressure, others looked at ginger or vitamin B6, and several tested drugs. But the reviewers did not find statistically significant evidence to support trying any of them, based on the limited and inconsistent effect they had on symptoms.
BOTTOM LINE: A review found no convincing evidence that treatments for nausea and vomiting during pregnancy were safe and effective.
CAUTIONS: Because so many studies measured symptoms and outcomes in different ways, the reviewers were limited in the conclusions they could draw.
WHERE TO FIND IT: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Sept. 8
