Comparison between ginger and vitamin B6 efficacy in the treatment of neauseaand vomiting during pregnancy

Introduction: Nausea and vomiting are among the most common complications during pregnancy. The use of medication especially in the first weeks of pregnancy may cause stress in pregnant woman and their family, because of the risk of teratogenesity. We performed this study to determine the effectiveness of ginger compared to vitamin B6 for treatment of nausea and vomiting during pregnancy. Methods: A total number of 80 pregnant women with nausea and vomiting before the 20th week of gestation that did not take any medication were included in this randomized, double blind clinical trial during a period of 11 months. They were randomly divided into 2 groups to take oral ginger or vitamin B6 for 4 days. All participants scored the severity of their nausea using visual analog scale and recorded the number of vomiting episodes in the previous 24 hours before treatment and during 4 consecutive days while taking the treatment. Seven days later in a follow-up visit, a five- item Likert scale was used to assess the severity of symptoms. The data were analyzed with SPSS software using t-test and Kroskal- Wallis test. Results: Severity of nausea (P<0.001) and spisodes of nausea (P<0.01) and vomiting (P<0.0001) was decreased significantly in the ginger groups (P<0.000), but comparing with vitamin B6 groups it did not have a significant difference in reducing severity of nausea and episodes of nausea as wellas vomiting. Conclusion: Ginger was effective for treatment of nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, but it is application needs further studies to determine the proper dosage and the impact of this drug on pregnant mothers and their fetus.