Spontaneous miscarriage

The happy delivery and birth of a healthy baby is the greatest joy for a woman waiting for her desired offspring. Unfortunately, not all pregnancies end successfully.

A number of different factors that have an adverse effect on the normal course of a pregnancy contribute to the occurrence of many complications that often lead to its loss. One of the most serious complications occurring in early pregnancy is spontaneous miscarriage.
The gestational age up to which pregnancy loss is considered a miscarriage is very conventional. The most common is up to 22 weeks of pregnancy, but there are centres around the world where this time is shorter, up to 16, or longer up to 24 or even 26 weeks of pregnancy.

The most accurate definition seems to be that miscarriage is the premature expulsion of the fetal egg to the point where there is no possibility of keeping the immature foetus alive. With advances in medicine and the improved survival rates of ever-younger fetuses, the period considered to be a miscarriage has shortened considerably. However, there are only a few facilities in the world where premature babies born at 26 weeks gestation manage to survive and develop normally.

Miscarriage accounts for about 10-15% of causes of pregnancy loss. However, it is worth noting that this percentage may be much higher due to the fact that a very large number of miscarriages go unnoticed. This is because it is difficult for a woman to notice the miscarriage of a very early pregnancy. Especially if it occurs in the first 5-6 weeks of the pregnancy and the woman does not suspect that she is pregnant.

photo: pantherstock

Bleeding and lower abdominal pain, which are the primary symptoms of miscarriage, are in this case treated by the woman as menstruation. As a rule, these symptoms are much more intense and occur after the date of the expected menstruation, but for women who menstruate irregularly, this is usually not an anomaly.
When such an early miscarriage occurs, there is no need for medical intervention to clean out the uterine cavity. The uterus usually clears on its own.