Comments on: Morning Sickness is an Adaptation, not a … Sickness

By: Mizz

Mizz — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 01:29:07 +0000

On TV once I heard about a captive Gorilla that started vomiting a lot in her first couple of months or so after conception.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 19:10:01 +0000

My first pregnancy I had cravings for protein rich, slightly salty foods, even before I knew I was pregnant. Upon discovery I suffered severe morning sickness and motion sickness and often throughout the day. I had heard from older women that it was signal of what the baby ‘preferred to eat’ and I should ‘listen’. My favorite foods would make me sick. No doubt, when I ate what the ‘baby’ wanted I could avoid sickness.My second pregnancy I had no cravings and no sickness. But my sense of smell of super-hero like. I later miscarried.

By: Bonnie

Bonnie — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:18:40 +0000

I (oddly) feel better knowing that there might be a reasonable evolutionary explanation for my morning sickness. I hate the idea that it was just a “medical mystery”.

By: Jyotsana

Jyotsana — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:34:33 +0000

Greg: I do indeed remember. It was a tofu and vegetable stir fry with noodles. Nothing fancy, just something I whipped up for dinner that night using a bag of frozen mixed veggies and a bottle of store-bought sauce (and the tofu, of course). I ate all of five bites and started to get severely nauseous. After vomiting I felt much better and was able to keep on eating and everything stayed down. I even did something similar during my second pregnancy. Ate some toast with butter and honey for breakfast, hurked it up, felt hungry again so I made some more toast using bread from the same loaf, same butter and honey, and just like with the stir fry, it stayed down on the second try.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:37:36 +0000

Jyotsana: I’d be very interested to know what that meal was. Do you remember?

By: Jyotsana

Jyotsana — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:18:19 +0000

PennyBright: Me too…one month ago yesterday, in fact. If my seizure had occurred a mere five minutes later, no one would have been around to witness it and call an ambulance.As to nausea, if it were purely food related, then why during my first pregnancy would I be eating a meal, get nauseous, throw up, then go back and continue eating on the same meal and not get sick again? If my body was trying to purge unsafe foods why would it let me keep eating what was left on my plate, the same type of food I had just expelled not ten minutes earlier?And I’m with Web Design: NVP is not just food-related. The main trigger for me during this second pregnancy was the shower. Didn’t matter what I tried, I wound up vomiting immediately after showering. Thankfully I could still watch all the Monty Python I wanted 🙂

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:43:15 +0000

What is the evolutionary explanation for an increased sensitivity manifest as nausea to Monty Python?

By: web design

web design — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:50:35 +0000

They seem to assume that all NVP is food-related here, but it’s not just smells and tastes that do it. Pregnancy is the only time I can remember actually vomiting because of things I saw on TV (I actually became certain I was pregnant and took a test because one night my ex and I rented *Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life* and *American Pie*, both of which had scenes that literally made me vomit), and my gag reflex became crazy–it was hard to brush my teeth without setting it off.

By: Stephanie Z

Stephanie Z — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:48:54 +0000

People also have different experiences with nausea in general. I’ve thrown up about half a dozen times as an adult, but I know people who throw up every time they get a cold.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:40:26 +0000

Julie: Yes and no. Yes, the whole idea of Sherman’s is that there is a ramped up warning response. That is the proposed mechanism. However, that is not seen as a side effect, but rather, a very sensible adaptation.I don’t think there is any evidence that this occurs differentially across pregnancies. That some individuals have had different experiences with different pregnancies (noted in the comments) may be confirmation bias and is not admissible as factoid. But as you say, Julie, there would presumably be different outcomes under different conditions. A ramping up of sensitivity does note mean nausea. A ramping up of sensitivity followed by encountering certain situations might mean nausea.As a general note: As is the case with all behavioral research on humans, it is difficult to make the case. Individuals with personal experience will often attribute to their own experience a higher level of confidence or relevance than it may deserve in the context of a broader study. Folklore is powerful, and some societies have the quaint belief that “there is truth behind every story.” And so on.