Understanding Early Miscarriage
Early miscarriage is a condition that can affect women during the early stages of pregnancy, often leading to feelings of fear, anxiety, and significant stress. This condition is characterized by the loss of pregnancy before reaching 24 weeks gestation and occurs in approximately 20% of pregnant women. Various factors can contribute to early miscarriage, including both fetal and maternal health issues.
Types of Miscarriage
- Threatened Miscarriage: This type is accompanied by vaginal bleeding, which poses a risk to the fetus and can lead to miscarriage at any moment.
- Inevitable Miscarriage: Occurs due to dilation of the cervix, accompanied by painful uterine contractions, leading to immediate miscarriage.
- Incomplete Miscarriage: In this situation, the fetus is expelled but some parts, such as the placenta or fetal membranes, remain in the uterus, often resulting in heavy bleeding and severe abdominal pain.
- Missed Miscarriage: This occurs when the fetus has died, but the body does not recognize the loss, and the products of conception remain in the uterus. An ultrasound will typically show no fetal heartbeat, necessitating a surgical procedure to remove the deceased fetus.
- Septic Miscarriage: This type results from a microbial infection of the uterus, leading to inflammation, fever, and fetal demise.
- Recurrent Miscarriage: This refers to cases where a woman experiences multiple miscarriages consecutively.
Causes of Early Miscarriage
- Fetal abnormalities, which may arise from poor egg fertilization, genetic factors, or weaknesses in the sperm or egg, are the leading cause of miscarriage.
- Insufficient oxygen supply to the fetus, possibly due to maternal hypertension, illness, or issues with the umbilical cord or placental blood vessels.
- Prenatal membrane rupture, which can occur when there is elevated pressure within the uterus, typically due to amniotic fluid accumulation.
- Maternal heart failure can lead to decreased oxygen levels in the body, affecting fetal health.
- Respiratory diseases, severe anemia, or exposure to anesthesia can affect the maternal oxygen supply to the fetus.
- Blood type incompatibility between the mother and fetus, particularly in cases where the mother has a negative blood type while the fetus has a positive type.
- Medications and substances consumed by the mother that may harm the fetus and induce miscarriage.
- Viral infections such as rubella, chickenpox, and syphilis can lead to fetal malformations or demise.
- Maternal fever that compromises the fetus’s ability to cope.
- Endocrine disorders in the mother, such as hypothyroidism, insulin deficiencies, and diabetes, can negatively impact pregnancy.
- Inadequate uterine environment for the embryo due to insufficient levels of hormones like progesterone.
- Uterine anomalies, such as a bicornuate uterus or fibroids, which can create an unfavorable environment for a pregnancy.
- External trauma or injury to the uterus.
Video on Causes of Miscarriage
To learn more about the causes of miscarriage, please watch the video.