Guest Author - Krissi Danielsson
I first heard of immunotherapy back in 2001 or so when I started researching miscarriages. I had just had this sinking feeling I was about to go through my second loss, and so my Internet journey began. Immunotherapy was a grouping of strange-sounding treatments that took the stance that a mother's immune system may be fighting off the baby as if it were a foreign invader. It made sense in theory. The potential treatments to address this were things like injecting the mother with the father's white blood cells to theoretically get her body to recognize the baby's DNA.
I always wondered about these treatments, particularly during the worst of my miscarriage struggle. Many of them sounded like a stretch, and I was eventually told as much by the reproductive endocrinologist from whom I sought treatment. He advised me that he only would consider such programs as a part of a clinical study and that the science behind them was dubious at best.
I like to keep an open mind about treatment. I'm not sure that most studies out there thoroughly evaluate potential treatments, for better or for worse, particularly as evidenced by the progesterone issue. But this one looks like certain types of immunotherapy may really BE a dud after all. A recent meta-analysis study examined 15 studies and found no benefit to the experimental treatments.
I found myself wondering what that truly means. Is the point more that immune issues don't play much of a role in recurrent miscarriages or that the current treatments don't adequately address the immune roles?
I guess only time will tell. Let's hope that this issue will continue to be looked at and someday become better understood.
I want to also announce that I am now officially ready to collect anecdotes for my upcoming book. I want real comments from real people like you about your miscarriage experiences. These will be used in a support book. Follow this link to send me your thoughts. I've configured the form to return you to the BellaOnline site when you're done. The survey is long, so answer as many or as few questions as you like. The more detail, the more likely it is that I'll be able to use your quotes. Thanks for your time!
