The study found that all children across the three groups scored within the normal ranges for neurodevelopmental outcome. But the children of women with morning sickness scored higher on performance IQ, verbal fluency, phonological processing and numerical memory.
Remarkably, the more severe the morning sickness, the more likely the children were to earn higher scores, the researchers found. They noted that maternal IQ also played a role in the outcome.
The results appear in the online edition of "The Journal of Pediatrics."
Morning sickness, which affects as many as 80 percent of pregnancies, is often one of the first signs of pregnancy, typically beginning around the second week of pregnancy. Many doctors speculate it is the result of altered levels of hormones, such as estrogen, HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin), and thyroxine.
