Paper Title
THE PREVALENCE AND EPIDEMIOLOGY OF NAUSEA AND VOMITING OF PREGNANCY IN JAMMU

Abstract
Background: Nausea and vomiting of pregnancy(NVP) is a common problem faced by about 70-85% of the pregnant women and its severe form leads to hypermesis gravidorum which if not diagnosed and treated properly can be harmful to both mother and the baby. Complications seen because of persistent NVP are Wernicke encephalopathy, visual changes, weight loss, electrolyte imbalance, maternal death and fetal loss. Various risk factors are seen to be associated with NVP like prior history of migraine , morning sickness, multiple pregnancy, underweight mother, nutritional deficiencies, psychiatric disorders etc. Objectives: To study the prevalence of NVP in our population and to identify the modifiable risk factors to prevent it. Materials and Methods: A Hospital based cross sectional descriptive study done at SMGS,GMC Jammu over 12 months from April 2023 till April 2024. Patients with gestational age <22 weeks and with nausea and vomiting of pregnancy were included and other causes of nausea and vomiting like UTI, gallstones, molar pregnancy, hyperthyroidism were excluded from the study. PUQE score used to measure clinical severity and data analyzed using microsoft excel and SPSS software. Results: A total of 5670 pregnant females with gestational age ≤22 weeks attended the OPD, 452 out of these i.e. 7.97% presented with NVP and only 0.79 % (45/5670) had hyperemesis gravidorum. 90.04% (407/452) of the patients had Mild PUQE score, 6.4%(29/452) had Moderate PUQE and 3.54% (16/452) had Severe PUQE score. It was more common amongst age group of 20-30 years( mean age of 22.9 ± 5.3 years), multigravida (52.4%), low education status(53.1%), lower and lower middle class (69%), gestational age between 10-16 weeks(mean gestational age of 14 weeks 3 days ) housemakers (67.7%), moderate built women (64.60%) with mean BMI of 22.9 ± 4.5. Most of these were singleton pregnancy(85.12%), with Ketosis present on urinalysis in majority(68.6%). Most common risk factor seen in these were a prior history of migraine or morning sickness(15.5%) followed by similar history in prior pregnancy (11.5%). Majority(99.56%) were managed with iv fluids, vitamin supplementation and antihistaminics and only 2 cases(0.4%) required use of steroids. Conclusion: NVP is common problem of pregnancy with can be modified if proper history taking and prepregnancy counselling is done. Adequate pregnancy nutrition and supplementation can prevent the morbidity of the condition. Keywords - Hypermesis gravidorum, Nausea, Vomiting, Pregnancy