Advertisement

‘Super-fertility’ offers clues to why some women have multiple miscarriages

I have no way of knowing what it's like to suffering through a miscarriage, but my heart goes out to anyone that has to go through the devastation and trauma that it can cause.

A team of doctors from Princess Anne Hospital in Southampton, UK and the University Medical Center Utrecht, in the Netherlands are hopeful that they can develop a test to determine who may be at risk for recurring miscarriages — which they define as losing three or more pregnancies in a row.

'Super-fertility' is the name they're giving to the condition, which causes a woman's uterus to accept embryos too easily. This includes embryos that the body would have normally rejected automatically, due to abnormalities or other problems.

According to Babycenter.ca, early miscarriages are very common and most occur without the woman even knowing that she's pregnant. After a pregnancy test has registered as positive, there is still a 1 in 5 chance that a miscarriage will occur. Miscarriages most often occur because the embryo is not developing as it should, likely due to chromosome problems.

"Many affected women feel guilty that they are simply rejecting their pregnancy," said Professor Nick Macklon, a consultant at the Princess Anne Hospital, according to BBC News, "but we have discovered it may not be because they cannot carry."

"It is because they may simply be super-fertile, as they allow embryos which would normally not survive to implant. When poorer embryos are allowed to implant, they may last long enough in cases of recurrent miscarriage to give a positive pregnancy test."

Dr. Siobhan Quenby, a Professor at Warwick Medical School in Coventry, UK, who runs a recurrent miscarriage support program, told the BBC: "It had been thought that rejecting normal embryos resulted in miscarriage, but what explains the clinical syndrome is that everything is being let in."

The researchers admit that this does not explain all miscarriages, but hope that with further research, a way can be found to test for and treat this condition.

[ More Daily Brew: Edmonton slammed by summer storm for the second time this week ]