Association of Clinical Psychiatric Disease with Hyperemesis Gravidarum

THERE are numerous reports that pernicious vomiting of pregnancy (hyperemesis gravidarum) is frequently associated with psychologic stress and emotional tension.1 2 3 4 5 The precise characterization of psychologic and emotional factors is notoriously difficult, especially when adequate control groups are not studied at the same time. As a result, the studies noted above have left open the possibility that the psychologic stress and emotional tension described were secondary to illness with hyperemesis gravidarum rather than the precipitating factors, or that they were nondiscriminatory occurrences that might also have been observed in an adequate control group. The absence of psychiatric follow-up studies of hyperemesis . . .