– I felt like I was dying a little every single day, says Linda Watten. As a pregnant mother of two in Nordfjord, she vomited up to 50 times a day. In both of her pregnancies, Watten struggled with severe pregnancy sickness, known in the technical language as hyperemesis. It happens to 1–2 percent of all pregnant women. Extreme nausea of pregnancy Extreme nausea of pregnancy, hyperemesis gravidarum, is a condition characterized by severe nausea and vomiting to such an extent that the general condition is affected. The vomiting can cause fluid and electrolyte changes (changes in the concentration of salts in the blood), which in turn explains the general effects. A widely used definition is nausea and vomiting before the 20th week of pregnancy, and which leads to more than 5 percent weight loss compared to the weight before the pregnancy started, detection of ketones in the urine and dehydration, as well as fluid and electrolyte disturbances. The extreme nausea usually persists throughout the pregnancy. Hyperemesis gravidarum was previously associated with serious morbidity and in some cases death in the mother. Correct fluid supply and nutrition directly in the blood means that morbidity is now much lower, and mortality is close to zero. Source: Norwegian health informatics – Why exactly I have become so bad, I have no idea, says Watten. May have solved the mystery Researchers have also been scratching their heads and looking for answers to why some women get extreme nausea of pregnancy. Many of these end up in hospital and have to have intravenous treatment because they are not getting enough nutrition. But now the researchers may have found the answer to the riddle. On 13 December, a research article appeared in the journal Nature. The researchers behind it point out that the cause may lie in a protein called GDF-15. This is a protein that the fetus makes. But if the woman does not have high values of this from before, she can become very unwell when she becomes pregnant. In some women with extreme nausea of pregnancy, the researchers can see changes in the gene for this specific protein. – This is ground-breaking research, says Jone Trovik. She is a senior physician and professor at the women’s clinic at Haukeland University Hospital. Trovik also researches hyperemesis and treats women with the condition. Senior doctor and professor Jone Trovik is researching extreme nausea of pregnancy. – We have far too little knowledge about the disease and it is important to find this out, says Trovik. Photo: Sigrid Grøm Bakken / news – If you can demonstrate changes in the genes, then you get an explanation that this is actually abnormal, says Trovik. Too many people do not take women with extreme pregnancy sickness seriously, she adds. – They dismiss it as something psychological, something that is not the case, states the researcher. For many women, the condition is so serious that they cannot bear to be pregnant any longer. American figures show that 10-15 percent of women with the condition have an abortion. In Haukeland, the abortion rate has fluctuated between 5-10 per cent, depending on which anti-nausea medication has been allowed on the market. Can get better medicines Lena Henriksen, political leader of the Norwegian Midwives Association, thinks the research is very exciting. – Extreme nausea of pregnancy is demanding and serious for those who are affected. If this study can lead to it being possible to do something about the cause of the condition itself, then this is very positive, says Henriksen. The day before Olivia is born, Linda Watten is very ready to become a mother – and get rid of the extreme nausea. She lost 17 kilos during the pregnancy. At the end, the girl’s belly stopped growing too. Photo: private This is also the hope of those who research and treat women with extreme nausea of pregnancy. – When you find a substance that there is too much of in the body, it gives us an opportunity to find better treatment, says Professor Jone Trovik at Haukeland. Because although there are medicines on the market, there is no help for everyone. Mother of two Linda Watten felt this hard on her body. Watten had to operate on a Hickman catheter to get intravenous fluids and nutrition straight into the blood. But this became a new hell of pain and did not work. Photo: private The anti-nausea medications did not work. She received various types of treatment, but this did not work, and only made her worse. What finally helped the body somewhat was intravenous fluids without additives. But the nausea never went away. – Many times I thought my last time had come, says the 29-year-old. She lost 17 kilos during the pregnancy. Can’t bear a third pregnancy But on 27 April this year, the nausea stopped as suddenly as it started four weeks into the pregnancy. Because on this spring day, weasel Olivia came into the world, five weeks early. – I got her on my chest and thought; “You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.” Letting go of “the living hell” that pregnancy was was also a big closure, says the mother of two. Watten is happy that research is being done on extreme nausea of pregnancy, something she thinks has been too little done. – That they may now have found an answer to why some of us get hit so extremely hard, I think is absolutely fantastic. Little Olivia has come into the world, 2198 grams and 45 cm. The girl grew well in the stomach, but at the end the growth stopped. Photo: private Now she hopes the research can lead to better medicine for those who become ill. But it probably won’t come in time for her. – I want a third child, but I don’t want a new hell, says Linda Watten.
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Researchers may have found the answer to why some women get extreme nausea of pregnancy called hypermesia – news Vestland
