Preparing for Your Baby

Hyperemesis Program (Severe Morning Sickness)
About 80 percent of pregnant women experience some nausea during the first trimester of pregnancy. About 3-5 of every 1,000 women develop such severe nausea and vomiting that weight loss and dehydration can jeopardize the health of the mother and baby. Each year, about 20,000 women are hospitalized for this condition, known as hyperemesis gravidarum.

At the MemorialCare Center for Women, years of research have produced a successful tactic to treat hyperemesis gravidarum. Most patients feel better within hours of receiving the therapy, stop vomiting after one day and are back home from the hospital after the second day.

The treatment, designed by Dr. Michael Nageotte, perinatologist and medical director of the MemorialCare Center for Women, and pharmacist Gerald Briggs, BPharm consists of infusions of the drugs Droperidol and Diphenhydramine. According to published data from the Center for Women, the Droperidol combination is significantly better than any one of a number of regimens that have been tried in the past.

It is important that women with hyperemesis gravidarum realize that treatment is possible despite the fears that both doctors and patients may harbor about using medications. For more information about the hyperemesis gravidarum program, contact Gerald Briggs, BPharm at 562.933.2758.