When I was pregnant with my son, and I couldn't keep anything down, I went to the hospital for help. I was severely dehydrated and I was losing weight. I was given IV fluids to help stop the nausea which was caused by hyperemesis gravidarum (HG). HG is a dibiliating pregnancy disease that causes relentless nausea and vomiting for the mother-to-be. Some women have HG right up to the day of delivering their babies, as it was in my case, but the HG can continue for some moms after they give birth as well.

The HER Foundation is a non-profit organization seeking to help raise awareness about hyperemesis gravidarum. HER is currenlty in need of 1000 volunteers to begin their research on HG. If you did not have HG, please volunteer as the foundation needs you to be in the control group. For more information visit the foundation at www.hyperemesis.org.

The HG study is designed to identify mothers-to-be who were diagnosed with HG by the collection of DNA samples from salivathrough the mail at no cost or travel for volunteers and to search for genes and risk factors that may be potentially associated with the condition.

To be eligible, you must have suffered from HG and had treatment for your HG that includes i.v. hydration, TPN or other form of non-oral feeding (ie nasogastric feeding), OR both, and are able to recruit a friend with at least 2 pregnancies who has NOT suffered from HG to serve as a control. If you live in the United States and are interested, please contact Marlena Schoenberg Fejzo, PhD at nvpstudy@usc.edu.

The sudy hopes to find the genes and risk factors that contribute to Hyperemesis Gravidarum will lead to a better understanding of the causes of severe nausea and vomiting of pregnancy. It is there hope that it will be a first step in finding effective treatments or a cure.