Hormone and blood clue found to miscarriages

Their findings could result in fewer “unnecessary” interventions during complicated pregnancies.

Experts hope their research will enable them to design effective methods to save the lives of unborn children.

Kaltum Adam, from St Mary’s Hospital in Manchester, said there was currently no way to determine which threatened miscarriages would lead to the end of a pregnancy.

But her research has revealed that by looking at the amount of bleeding and the levels of the pregnancy hormone, human chorionic gonadotrophin (hCG), doctors could accurately predict the outcome.

“This research has, for the first time, offered us a robust tool to begin to attempt to rescue pregnancies threatening to miscarry, when, currently, all we can do is fold our hands and hope for the best,” she said.

Between 2009 and last year, her team followed 112 women with threatened miscarriages who were between six and 10 weeks pregnant. Each was monitored for five weeks with ultrasound scans and weekly tests for hormones. Researchers also tracked pain and bleeding.

An analysis of the results showed that by looking at the amount of bleeding and levels of hCG together, researchers could create a pregnancy viability index (PVI).

This enabled them to accurately predict a positive outcome in 94 per cent of the women who did not lose their babies. They identified a negative outcome in the 77 per cent of women whose pregnancy ended in miscarriage.

Dr Adam’s team believes doctors could use the model to spare the vast majority of women “wasteful and potentially harmful interventions” including unnecessary blood tests, ultrasound scans and hospital admissions for bed rest.

They may also be able to avoid advising sexual abstinence and prescribing medication such as a low dose aspirin or supplementing hormone levels.

This would enable psychological counselling and support to be targeted at the women most likely to miscarry.

By identifying the factors which impact significantly on the outcome of a pregnancy, scientists believe they will be able to gain a better understanding of the process of threatened miscarriage.

“This, in turn, may enable us to design more effective interventions to rescue these pregnancies,” Dr Adam said.

Those who conducted the study, funded by a grant from Central Manchester University Hospitals, believe PVI lends itself to widespread use because it is simple, inexpensive and does not require sophisticated equipment.

Announcing their findings at the annual meeting of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology in Stockholm, Sweden, they said around 20 per cent of all pregnancies were complicated by threatened miscarriage and up to 20 per cent of these would fail.

An estimated one in five pregnancies in the UK ends in miscarriage, according to the NHS, affecting some 250,000 women in the UK every year.

Separate research presented to the meeting suggests women trying for a baby should pay attention to their teeth.

A study has found that gum disease can increase the time it takes to conceive. On average, women with gum infections took just over seven months to get pregnant – two months longer than it took women with healthy gums.

Gum disease also increased the likelihood of waiting more than a year to become pregnant, a recognised sign of impaired fertility.

The inflammatory effects are linked with wider health issues including heart disease, diabetes, miscarriage and premature birth.