The Burden of Illness of Severe Nausea and Vomiting of Pregnancy in the United States

Objective: Our purpose was to determine the extent to which nausea and vomiting of pregnancy affects a woman's quality of life (QOL), ability to function, and health care resource use.

Study Design: We conducted an observational, multicenter, prospective cohort study by gathering data on the symptoms, QOL, and health care resource use from women who have nausea and vomiting of pregnancy.

Results: All 8 domains of health measured by the Short Form-36 QOL survey were limited by patient symptoms. This limitation manifested itself as patient-time loss from work and other normal activities, unpaid caregiver-time loss from work, and use of health care resources (eg, hospitalization). All types of time loss were correlated to severity of symptoms.

Conclusions: Nausea and vomiting of pregnancy can severely reduce a woman's QOL and ability to function. The degree of limitation is associated with the severity of symptoms.