Hyperemesis: 'I couldn't move without vomiting. I couldn't sit up or go to the bathroom'

Non-stop nausea and vomiting while pregnant — some women have a genetic predisposition to this severe form of 'morning sickness'

Dr Marlena Fejzo

The work of a US-based geneticist, who suffered hyperemesis that “felt like torture” during her second pregnancy, is promising hope for women affected by this severe form of ‘morning sickness’.

Dr Marlena Fejzo, who works at the Centre for Genetic Epidemiology at the Keck School of Medicine (University of Southern California), is 55 now but memories from that pregnancy at the end of the 1990s are still vivid. She recalls realising she was pregnant while in Italy for her brother’s wedding.