Nausea and Vomiting During Pregnancy is Highly Heritable.

ABSTRACT

Nausea and vomiting during pregnancy (NVP) affects about 70 % of all expectant mothers and commonly impacts their physical health and psychosocial functioning. The aim of this study was to estimate the heritability of the presence, duration and severity of NVP. The sample consisted of 1723 women (M age = 41.78, SD = 11.67) including twins in both complete and incomplete pairs and their sisters from two cohorts participating in the NVP Genetics Consortium. The sample comprised 159 monozygotic and 140 dizygotic complete twin pairs, and 69 twin-sister pairs. We applied an extended twin design using OpenMx and Mx for secondary analysis. Individual differences in NVP were best explained by additive genetic and unique environmental effects. Heritability estimates were 73 % (95 % CIs = 57-84 %) for presence, 51 % (95 % CIs = 36-63 %) for duration and 53 % (95 % CIs = 38-65 %) for severity of NVP. The genetic correlation between duration and severity was almost perfect. Our results show that genes play an important role in different aspects of NVP and justify the importance of searching for genetic variants.