Miscarriage Risk

I wasn’t planning on posting again until I had a heartbeat appointment, but I found a cool / terrifying website that collects medical journal articles on miscarriage risks / factors.  Right up my alley!

https://sites.google.com/site/miscarriageresearch/home

The website summarizes the medical journal articles, and I’ll summarize the website’s summaries. (Although here's a nice summary from the website: https://sites.google.com/site/miscarriageresearch/what-causes-miscarriage)

Things you can (theoretically) control that have been shown to help fertility/decrease miscarriage risk:

·        Eat chocolate.  :)

·        Eat good fats (olive oil).  

·        Eat whole milk, yogurt, ice cream, and cheese.

·        Eat eggs.

·        Eat fiber (whole grains, veggies, certain fruits).

·        Eat fruit.  (“Eating 2+ servings of fruit per day lowers risk of miscarriage by 70%.”) 

·        Eat veggies.

·        Eat fish.

·        Moderate exercise is okay/good.

·        Multivitamins are good.  (Pretty much all vitamins are good, including DHEA.)

·        Gluten free is good… if you have celiac disease.

·        Don’t drink when TTC.  (This one made me sad because l love my booze.)  Drinking makes it more likely you’ll have a short luteal phase (luteal phase defect!), and decreases pregnancy and live birth rate.   :(

·        Don’t eat a lot of butter or oil.  

·        Don’t eat bad fats (cake).

·        Don’t be fat.

·        Strenuous exercise is bad.

Things your hubby/boyfriend/sperm donor can do that have been shown to help fertility/decrease miscarriage risk:

·        Eat cereal, fruit, folate, fish.

·        Don’t drink.

·        Don’t be fat.  And also don’t diet.  (Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.)

·        Don’t eat (too much?) red meat.

·        Don’t smoke.

It also provides general miscarriage statistics:

Event	Miscarriage risk
Overall	17-22%
Gestational sac	12-15%
Heartbeat 6 wks	9.4%
Heartbeat 7 wks	4.2%
Heartbeat 8 wks	1.5%
Heartbeat 9 wks	0.5%
Heartbeat 10 wks	0.7%
Second trimester	0.5%

Other factors relating to miscarriage risk:

·        Miscarriage risk increases 12% after (mom) age 30; goes up 39% after age 35; doubles after age 40

·        Miscarriage risk increases after (mom) age 35; increases 5 fold after age 40

·        Miscarriage risk doubles after (mom) age 40 and triples after age 45

·        Having a partner (dad) over 40 years old increases risk of miscarriage by 60%

·        Risk of miscarriage increases by 43% when partner (dad) is age 35, by 90% at age 50

·        Miscarriage risk increases 88% if the father is over 50 years old

·        Miscarriage risk doubles for those who need more than a year to successfully conceive (boo!)

·        Induced abortion increases the risk of miscarriage 128% for up to 2 years

We already knew this one:

·        Morning sickness associated with 70% reduction in miscarriage risk, with a marked increasing trend of reducing odds with increasing severity of nausea.

And here are a few real bummers for those of us with recurrent miscarriages:

·        Recurrent miscarriage increases risk of stillbirth 1300%, preterm birth 60%, ectopic pregnancy 160%

·        Miscarriage risk is normally 2% after a heartbeat is seen; but 18% in women with recurrent miscarriage

·        Risk of miscarriage only increases by 7% after one loss; nearly doubles after three or more

·        After two miscarriages, one still has a 91.2% chance of successful pregnancy; drops to 20% after 7.  In other words, the most miscarriages you’ve had, the more likely you are to have another one:

Previous number of miscarriages	2	3	4	5	6	7
Live birth rate for 1stpregnancy after exam	76.3%	66.1%	59.0%	53.3%	31.3%	13.3%
Cumulative success rate (birth of at least 1 child)	91.2%	82.9%	76.0%	73.3%	56.3%	20.0%

·        Each miscarriage raises risk of future heart attack by 40%

I have not read any of the underlying studies.  Like, for the last one, did it account for obesity?  I mean, is it possible that being obese was a risk factor for infertility (it is) and heart attack (it is), but that infertility alone has no connection to heart attack?  I hope so!

Okay, here a few more:

·        Supplemental progesterone decreases miscarriage risk after unexplained recurrent miscarriages.

Anyway, after I read this I ate a bowl of strawberries, and was happy I had some chocolate today, but regretted the pizza I had for dinner… and breakfast.