Miscarriage or spontaneous abortions is a painful experience for an expecting mother as well as the farther at any stage. Even a very early stage miscarriage, specially in first pregnancy leads to psychological stress lasting for several months though physically recovers quickly. Although the nature of the miscarriage is understood well in medicine, there are cases in our society where the mother is still blamed by the family members for not being cautious. This article is intended to provide a better understanding about the event and beyond.
The reason for most of the miscarriages is genetic abnormalities of the fetus. However they randomly occur by chance and do not mean that the parents have bad genes. The body itself identifies these abnormalities and work towards to expel the fetus. Other reasons include hormonal problems, problems of the womb and infections that may not be prevented by the mother. More than 30% of the pregnancies ended up with miscarriages, however many mothers never know it as most of them are occurred in very early stages. Up to 75% of the miscarriages are occurred in first 3 months of the pregnancy.
However some lifestyle factors such as high caffeine/coffee intake, uncontrolled diabetes, high impact physical activities in first trimester have shown to increase the risk.
Early pregnancy miscarriage has very low health risk to the mother and most of the time invasive medical treatments such as “dilate and curettage” are not needed except watchful waiting. The body resolves it naturally expelling all the pregnancy products from the body (i.e. fetus, placenta, sac). However sometimes the natural process leaves some tissues in the womb making an incomplete abortion or abortion does not occur during the expected time posing a risk for infection. In such cases medical intervention is needed. It is highly advisable to see a medical practitioner if an expecting mother is bleeding or experiencing an abortion.
An abortion can be diagnosed by an ultrasound scan, checking the expelled tissues and pregnancy hormone levels. Following are the common types of miscarriages.
Empty sac: where the gestational sac is developed normally but the fetal development is arrested (no fetus or heart beat can be detected even at 8 weeks of gestation).
Complete miscarriage: Development of the fetus and sac arrested and tissues completely expelled.
Missed miscarriage: Fetal development has been arrested (died) but not yet expelled. If the abortion does not start soon should be surgically removed to prevent infections. However surgical procedures should be minimized if possible because of the possible damages to the womb.
Another important aspect is the psychological status of the mother. Peers and family members should help her to get rid of the emotional pain convincing it is not her fault and assuring the higher chance of healthy pregnancy in future.
