Answer from: Luciano Nardo, MD, MRCOG
I think it’s difficult to say whether any pregnant woman or any woman seeking pregnancy would be doing intentionally anything wrong to increase the risk of miscarriage. I think that’s not the right statement but what we could say is that there are some contributing factors or factors to the risk of miscarriage and predominantly it could be with a past history. So for instance women that may have had a coil inside the uterus and have had an infection inside the uterus could have an increased risk of miscarriage. Women that drink excessively or smoke, they could increase the risk of miscarriage. Women that have hormone imbalances for different reasons, could have an increased risk of miscarriage.
But there is a little that can be done in terms of preventing the risk of miscarriage unless we know the cause of miscarriage.
Answer from: Ingrid Granne, DPhil MA MBBS MRCOG
It’s not what you do that causes a miscarriage, certainly the commonest reason that miscarriages happen is that there’s a problem with the chromosomes – the packages of genetic material within a pregnancy and that’s something that happens in the very very early stages of cell division of the pregnancy and it’s not something that you can influence and therefore it’s not something you’ve done and I will certainly tell my patients that in some senses whatever they do or all we try and do to help isn’t what’s going to change the outcome of a pregnancy. It’s up to that little embryo for the most part as to whether that pregnancy continues or not.
