11 Things You Didn’t Know About Miscarriage

How to minimize your risk and, if needed, move forward.

ByABC News
June 18, 2014, 10:37 AM
How to minimize your miscarriage risk and, if needed, move forward.
How to minimize your miscarriage risk and, if needed, move forward.
Getty Images

June 19, 2014— -- intro: Reality TV stars Giuliana and Bill Rancic recently revealed that the surrogate who was nine weeks pregnant with their second child had a miscarriage.

Giuliana told People that she had had a miscarriage herself in 2010 before turning to a surrogate, Delphine. Now, that sense of loss was amplified.

“It was just heartbreaking,” Giuliana said, “I just started sobbing uncontrollably. But I had to get myself together for her. She’s really strong and amazing.”

Still, she and Bill are looking forward to the day when their 21-month-old son can have a sibling.

“Because miscarriage so common, you need to be aware that it could happen to you,” says Teresa Berg, M.D., director of Maternal-Fetal Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. “And just because you’ve had one doesn’t mean you’re not going to have another.”

Here’s what you need to know to minimize your risk and, if needed, move forward.

quicklist: 1category: What You Need to Know About Miscarriagetitle: Miscarriage happens more often than you thinkurl:text: The figure often cited is that about 15% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, which is also called “early pregnancy loss” and “spontaneous abortion.” But with the extra-sensitive, early-response pregnancy tests available these days, that number may be as high as 30% of all pregnancies, Dr. Berg says.

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quicklist: 2category: What You Need to Know About Miscarriagetitle: Miscarriage happens early in pregnancyurl:text: The definition of miscarriage is a pregnancy lost before 20 weeks, but almost all miscarriages occur before the 12-week mark, says Dr. Berg. (That’s why expecting parents are often told to wait until the second trimester to start spreading the news.) A pregnancy lost after 20 weeks is usually referred to as stillbirth.

quicklist: 3category: What You Need to Know About Miscarriagetitle: You may not know you’ve miscarriedurl:text: “You can miscarry within the first 10 days of conception and not even recognize that you’ve had a pregnancy loss,” says Dr. Berg. “You may think it’s just a period.” Bleeding is a common symptom of miscarriage, so is severe cramping. If you have either symptom and you know you’re pregnant, see a doctor or go to the emergency room to avoid two possible complications of miscarriage: hemorrhage and infection.

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quicklist: 4category: What You Need to Know About Miscarriagetitle: It’s not the mother’s faulturl:text: Most miscarriages occur because of genetic abnormalities in the embryo, Dr. Berg says. There’s really no way to predict or prevent them. They just happen.

quicklist: 5category: What You Need to Know About Miscarriagetitle: Older women are more likely to miscarryurl:text: Miscarriages become even more common as women get older. That’s because as eggs age, the chances of genetic abnormalities increase.

quicklist: 6category: What You Need to Know About Miscarriagetitle: Fertility treatments may raise your riskurl:text: But if they do, it’s probably a small increase and it may be hard to determine if it’s due to the treatments or to other factors—many women undergoing fertility treatment are older, or have other conditions that affect fertility. If you’re 40 and trying to get pregnant, you’ll have a better chance of carrying a baby to term if you use a donor egg from a younger woman, says Dr. Berg.