Guest Author - Krissi Danielsson
The past two months have seen a couple of news discoveries, at least one pointless study, and several other stories about miscarriage. The headlines been revealing in the consistent ignorance of the mainstream press about miscarriage, particularly in the case of the pointless study. Here are my comments:
Norwegian researchers saw fit to attempt to compare the pain of miscarriage to the pain of abortion. If anything ever compared apples to oranges with no clear purpose in doing so, this is it. The study compared 40 moms who suffered a miscarriage with 80 women who had an elective abortion, then questioned them after 10 days, 6 months, 2 years, and 5 years. The study found that the women who had elective abortions suffered more mental distress at the two and five year intervals, while the women who suffered miscarriages had greater stress up until six months.
Why on earth such a study was commissioned is something I cannot even fathom. Grief is personal to everyone, but with the differences involved in miscarriages versus abortions, they may as well have compared the grief of miscarriage with the grief of having one's own mother die. Or with losing a pet. The two events do not belong in the same universe. Choosing to terminate a pregnancy has nothing to do with losing a wanted baby through no action of one's own. And a big fat boo to all the reporters who ran this story with headlines like, "Anguish of abortion is worse than miscarriage."
I'd also wonder how many confounding factors may have been present in this study. 40 is a fairly small sample of women who had miscarriages. And were they continuing to try for a baby after having the miscarriage? How many got pregnant and had a new baby within two years after the miscarriage? And what were the factors that led the women to get abortions? Did the women want the babies but have medical factors that led them to abort? Were they raped? How were the participants recruited? Was this a convenience sample or a true random sample? Too many questions.
Somewhat more hopeful news came in a study by the Monash Institute of MEdical Research and Sydney's St. Vincent's Hospital, which continued to study the impact of a certain protein level on miscarriages. The scientists identified the link in 2004, but they have now confirmed that the protein levels were about 70 percent lower in women who had a miscarriage. The protein affects how well the placenta is able to implant in the uterus, and it's possible that the finding could, at some point in the future, allow doctors to prescribe supplements of the protein. It can also identify women who are at risk for miscarriage and allow for further monitoring. What remains to be seen is whether this protein level is causing women to lose potentially healthy pregnancies or whether it is caused by chromosomal abnormalities in the developing baby which would lead to loss anyway. I hope we will see more research on this link.
And on that note, another boo to the Daily Mail of the UK for running this story with the headline of "Is this the end for miscarriage heartbreak?", a very loaded headline, while failing to consider that this discovery is not about to lead to saving babies in the very near future.
If there was ever a reason to ban cigarettes from your home, here it is. While it's not news that smoking can affect the risk of miscarriages, a study by American and Chinese researchers found that heavy smoking by the father can raise the miscarriage risk. It may cause greater odds for chromosomal anomalies in the sperm or affect the developing baby through the mother's exposure to the cigarette smoke.
A new book is coming out too from AuthorHouse which tells the story of a miscarriage through the eyes of a child. The book, called The Size of My Family is Just Right for Me sounds questionable. According to the press release, it tells of a young girl looking forward to having a sibling but the baby being lost to miscarriage, then the girl realizing that her family is just fine as it is. I can see this being helpful if a mom is not planning to try again, but I would wonder how this book would affect things by convincing a child that it's perhaps better to not have another baby and then the mom gets pregnant again and it sticks? I'd be interested to review the book if the author would happen to be reading this (I seem to have a lot of fellow authors lurking here...wink).
A new study is looking at IVIG therapy for recurrent miscarriages. This article has no date, but is looking for women aged 18-44 who had one successful pregnancy followed by three miscarriages with causes such as genetics and hormonal imbalances ruled out. The article includes the phone number to call to volunteer.
I've always hated the idea that stress can be linked to miscarriages. With something so terrible and unwanted, it seems that it would only make things worse to have any reason that a woman could use to blame herself. Yet, another series of studies from Germany has supported a link between stress and miscarriages. The scientist exposed pregnant mice to loud noises and stressful situations, which appeared to disrupt the hormonal balance and stop the immune system from supporting the placental and fetal cells. Following the discovery, the team monitored blood samples from 864 pregnant women and found that stress may result in lower progesterone levels. The researcher was able to prevent stressed mice from miscarrying by supplementing with progesterone.
This finding is of great interest to me, given that progesterone appears to be one factor helped me personally finally carry a pregnancy to term despite being extremely stressed and fearful of losing my baby. Yet progesterone therapy is still considered unproven. The researcher who conducted this study is now planning a trial of supplementing progesterone in stressed women to attempt to prevent miscarriages. Stay tuned.
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