Nausea and vomiting affect 66% of women during pregnancy in Italy, a figure that highlights the numerical relevance of this disorder; only 25% of women with nausea and vomiting received treatment for their symptoms. This is what emerges from the Purity study launched by the Italian Society of Gynecology and Obstetrics (SIGO), which investigated the impact of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy (NVP) determining prevalence, severity, duration of symptoms and their consequences on quality of life. , as well as the evaluation of neonatal outcomes and the health status of the woman after giving birth.
Purity – reports a note – represents, to date, the first and only multicenter study that has examined in depth the prevalence of NVP in Italian women and its impact on quality of life, work activity and personal life, in a large and representative sample of Italian pregnant women. These disorders have always been experienced, in the collective imagination, as typical of the early stages of pregnancy and as such, destined to disappear with the evolution of the gestational age. The most recent studies on this topic have shown that this is not the case.
“In most cases, NVP manifests itself in a moderate manner, although the duration of symptoms can exceed the first trimester of pregnancy. Although the most frequent complaint is nausea, there is a high percentage, approximately 37% of cases , in which nausea is also associated with vomiting – comments Romolo Di Iorio, associate professor of Gynecology and Obstetrics at the University of Rome Sapienza – In a rarer case study, around 4%, we also find pregnant women in whom NVP it can worsen and become hyperemesis gravidarum, a pathological condition that can even lead to hospitalization and which in the most serious cases involves significant risks for both the woman and the child”.
In our country, NVP has often been underestimated and undertreated – we read in the note – Purity was created precisely to fill this knowledge gap and involved a homogeneous sample of 528 pregnant patients belonging to three Italian hospital facilities: the Vittore Children’s Hospital Buzzi’ of Milan, the SS. Annunziata of Chieti and the Federico II University Hospital of Naples. A questionnaire was administered to the women interviewed in two phases: in the first, between the eighteenth and twenty-second week of pregnancy, the prevalence and severity of NVP, the onset and duration of symptoms, their treatment and impact on quality of life; the second phase, within 14 days after giving birth, examined the correlation between the symptoms of NVP during pregnancy and neonatal outcomes, as well as the post-partum health status of the women.
“We set ourselves the objective not only of examining the severity of the disorder and the possible therapies, but also the aspects linked to the quality of life of the pregnant woman. And it is precisely for this reason that we included specific questions which highlighted how women require greater attention to the problem, which as such must be recognized and treated – explains Irene Cetin, full professor of Gynecology and Obstetrics at the University of Milan and director of Obstetrics at the Milan Polyclinic – In this sense the healthcare professional carries out a fundamental role in giving relief and providing concrete help to women. It is our task, in fact, to make women aware that it is possible to experience this phase of life in all its aspects without sacrificing the couple’s relationship, nor having to give up their own. social or working life. In difficult or disabling situations you can in fact resort to an effective and safe therapy that allows you to live the nine months of pregnancy to the full, without any more limitations”.
The study highlighted that in some cases NVP can make women feel so bad that they are forced to stop working or, in extreme cases, to think about terminating their pregnancy; this leads the phenomenon to be considered of great impact even in public opinion, which has always underestimated it and associated it with an almost normal condition of pregnancy.
Furthermore, on the basis of a scale used internationally, which assessed the severity of the disorder (Puqe – Pregnancy-Unique Quantification of Emesis and Nausea), it emerged that 348 women out of 528 suffered from nausea and vomiting during pregnancy in the first 22 months. weeks. Specifically, the symptoms occurred in a mild form in 118 women equal to 34% of cases, moderate in 217 women equal to 62% and severe in 13 women equal to 4%. The survey highlights that only 25% of the women involved received treatment (pharmacological or non-pharmacological) to combat the symptoms. Among these, the majority of the interviewees, equal to 67.7%, declared that they had used the combination of doxylamine 10 mg and pyridoxine 10 mg.
“In addition to these data, one of the most important and statistically significant results collected in the second phase of the study was that relating to the gestational time: in fact, women who present nausea and vomiting during pregnancy – concludes Cetin – had on average a longer gestational time short; therefore, they had a preterm birth, as they did not reach the fortieth week”.
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