Ginger eases morning sickness

Ginger might be helpful in relieving nausea and vomiting that plague many pregnant women as a part of their morning sickness. Although it does not cure the problem but it surely increases the choice available to women for the management of morning sickness. Up to 80 percent of pregnant women experience morning sickness during the first trimester of pregnancy. Ginger has long been used to ease nausea, and there is some evidence that it relieve motion sickness and other types of queasiness. Researchers from the University of South Australia in Adelaide conducted a study on ginger's ability to ease morning sickness. To investigate the researching team enrolled almost 300 women who were less than 16 weeks pregnant and suffered from nausea or vomiting. Vitamin B6 has been shown to improve nausea and vomiting in some pregnant women, so the researchers compared the effects of ginger with the vitamin. The participants were randomly assigned to take a capsule containing 350-milligram (mg) of ginger or one containing 25 mg of vitamin B6 three times a day for three weeks. Ginger was equally effective as vitamin B6 at relieving nausea, vomiting and dry retching.

Neither ginger nor vitamin B6 caused any major side effects. However, women who took ginger were much more likely to experience belching after taking the capsules. There have been some concerns that taking ginger during pregnancy may be harmful to babies, but there were no differences between the ginger and vitamin B6 groups in birth defects or pregnancy complications. But because of the small size of the study, the researchers concluded that there is insufficient data on the efficacy of ginger in morning sickness. Firm evidence on the safety of ginger in pregnancy is essential and further systematic research on the risks and benefits of ginger during pregnancy would be of great clinical relevance.

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