A pill to combat morning sickness in pregnant woman has been approved for the first time in the UK, which could help thousands of mums-to-be.
Xonvea specifically tackles nausea and vomiting during pregnancy, and has already been used for years in the US and Canada.
It was finally licensed by a drug firm for use in the UK on Monday, with expectant mothers suffering from morning sickness, also known as nausea and vomiting in pregnancy (NVP), being recommended to take between two and four pills per day.
Doctors will be able to prescribe the morning sickness pill from summer 2019, after thorough testing on pregnant women found it to be more than 23 per cent more effective than placebo treatments.
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Xoneva reduced the amount of nausea by two thirds, and cut the number of episodes of vomiting from four to just one a day in the final clinical trials.
Doctors have been extremely reluctant to prescribe pregnant women any kind of drug for morning sickness in the wake of the thalidomide scandal in the 1950s, which caused severe birth defects in thousands of babies.
Xonvea has been used by 30 million pregnant women worldwide during the last 40 years to alleviate the symptoms of NVP.
It was approved for use in Canada in 1979 and the USA in 2013, but drug companies have been hesitant to license it in the UK, with mothers using natural remedies like ginger.
Up to 80 per cent of women suffer from morning sickness while pregnant, which is around 690,000 women in England and Wales each year.
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It is the most common reason women are admitted to hospital through their pregnancy, costing the NHS around £62 million a year.
Two per cent of expectant mums suffer from hyperemesis gravidarum, a more severe form of morning sickness, which the Duchess of Cambridge suffered from in all three of her pregnancies.
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service hopes this pill will help reduce the number of women having to terminate a pregnancy because of extreme morning sickness.
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According to the body, around 1,000 pregnancies are aborted in the UK each year because symptoms are so debilitating.
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