Treatment for extreme nausea, vomiting during...( This press release is available in...)

This press release is available in French.

Montreal, May 6, 2009 Nausea and vomiting are telltale indicators of pregnancy, affecting more than 80 percent of future mothers. For a few moms-to-be, symptoms can become so severe that hospitalization is required.

Yet a new medication protocol, introduced by the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center, appears effective in improving symptoms more quickly and provides a safer option than those previously available. The findings, which are good news for moms and babies, are published in a recent edition of the European Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Reproductive Biology.

"In 2002, we had to quickly change the medication protocol to treat hyperemisis gravidarum (HG), or severe nausea and vomiting of pregnancy, due to a FDA and Health Canada warnings," says senior researcher Anick Brard, a professor at the Universit de Montral's Faculty of Pharmacy and director of the Research Unit on Medications and Pregnancy of the Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center.

"The warning found that a previously used anti-vomiting medication might cause adverse cardiovascular effects in mothers. We had to quickly choose another treatment, which was safer. The current study looks back at the data to evaluate the effectiveness of this treatment."

Metoclopramide versus droperidol

Dr. Brard and her team, which included researchers from the Universit de Bourgogne, evaluated 229 pregnant women who were admitted to hospital and treated for HG. The scientists compared use of the standard drug droperidol versus the administration of a newer medication called metoclopramide.

They found that metoclopramide worked faster to quell symptoms of nausea and vomiting than droperidol. Importantly, they found no evidence that either of these medications increased the birth defect
'/>"/>