Miscarriage due to stress

Miscarriage due to stress

Can a miscarriage be triggered by pre-pregnancy stress ? A new prospective study at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center has addressed this issue. Here are the results.

Miscarriage causes

Unfortunately, I remember too well the thought carousel after my own miscarriage.  Did I do something wrong? Should I have worked less and saved considerably more? Or was the stress during the fertility treatment just too big?

Maybe you know these or very similar questions from yourself. The question of the causes of the miscarriage will not let you go. A common and often heard explanation is that stress can increase the risk of miscarriage.

Tip: Pregnant after miscarriage: How long should one be?

Miscarriage due to stress: study finds no connection

All the more surprising are the results of a study published by Courtney Lynch, a professor of gynecology and pediatrics at the Ohio Wexner Medical Center. The data in her study did not show any correlation between measurable indicators of pre-conceptional stress and miscarriage in early pregnancy.

"We found no association between miscarriages and preconception stress,"

For the study, 337 pairs of children up to 12 months were accompanied on their way and further examined after pregnancy. Cortisol and alpha-amylase from saliva were measured as stress markers and these investigations were continued in subsequent pregnancies and compared with each other. The average age of the participating women was 29 years, that of men 31 years. The pregnancies were determined by a digital pregnancy test.

In total, 97 miscarriages were recorded, of which 42 occurred before the 6th week of pregnancy and 53 later in the first trimester. 2 miscarriages took place in the 2nd trimester.

Despite this surprising result, so Lynch, the exact connection between miscarriage and stress remains unclear. More studies are needed to investigate the exact role of stress in early pregnancy and miscarriage.

"Future studies need to be fully accounted for the role of stress in early pregnancy and miscarriage."

This result has surprised me, as many of the retrospective studies in the past, in particular, have often linked stressful life events to miscarriages. Although the results of the new study need to be further investigated, they shed new light on the initial question. What do you think?