Scientists Now Can Predict Miscarriages

British researchers have come up with a preliminary index to predict which pregnancies will end in miscarriage, with 94 percent accuracy rate. It requires no equipment and can help doctors inexpensively focus resources on high-risk pregnancies.

The research was presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. Lead researcher Dr. Kaltum Adam and colleagues monitored 112 women who were between six and ten weeks pregnant for five weeks:

They had ultrasound scans, weekly charting of pain and bleeding and weekly tests to check the levels of progesterone and the pregnancy hormone, human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG). After analysing data on the outcomes of these pregnancies, Dr Adam found there were six factors that had the most impact on the risk of miscarriage: a history of subfertility, levels of progesterone, levels of hCG, the length of the foetus, how much bleeding had occurred, and the gestational age of the baby.

On their own, these factors weren't enough to predict whether a woman would miscarriage, but two of them turned out to be predictive: bleeding and hCG.

According to Adam, in the absence of this procedure, "we have no way of predicting which threatened miscarriages will result in the end of the pregnancy and so we are unable to target attempts to rescue the pregnancy at the right women or to offer them counselling. This has led to wasteful and potentially harmful interventions, including unnecessary blood tests, ultrasound scans, hospital admissions for bed rest, sexual abstinence, low dose aspirin and progesterone supplementation."

For The First Time Researchers Can Predict Accurately The Outcome Of Pregnancies Threatening To Miscarry [ESHRE]
Fertility Researchers Can Predict Which Pregnancies Are At Greatest Risk For Miscarriage [LAT]