Miscarriage

It is a sad fact of life that early pregnancy loss is quite common. This does not make it any less distressing but the truth is roughly a quarter of all women will experience a miscarriage, in one form or another, during their reproductive years. There is a small subset of women who experience recurrent miscarriage. That is a separate subject discussed in detail elsewhere on this site.

It is important to state that in the majority of cases, nothing can be done to influence what happens to a pregnancy in its early phase. In other words, the miscarriage is rarely due to what the mother has done or not done. In a minority of cases, pre-disposing factors for a miscarriage, such as drug abuse, can be identified. In the majority of cases, however, no such factors are apparent.

Frequency of early loss of pregnancy

Unfortunately, early pregnancy loss is very common. It is practically impossible to know the proportion of pregnancies that do not make it beyond the first trimester but conservative estimates put the rate at around 25%. That is a quarter of all pregnancies.

If taken in the context of women who conceive, at least a quarter of them will experience a miscarriage or another form of early pregnancy loss. Some women experience more than one pregnancy loss.

Miscarriage is certainly one of the most common problems gynecologists deal with in their day-to-day work.

Other forms of early pregnancy loss

Whilst spontaneous miscarriage is the most well-known form of early pregnancy loss, this can take other forms. These include:

§ Blighted ovum (also called anembryonic pregnancy),

§ Missed abortion (miscarriage),

§ Ectopic pregnancy,

§ Molar pregnancy and

§ Induced abortion.

Next Page: Blighted ovum