m/c or loss statistics by week (prev loss ment)

Hi folks,

I've heard that a surprising large percentage
of (known) pregnancies end in miscarriage, and
that the risk of miscarriage is highest in the
first trimester. It would seem surprising that
that the risk is even throughout the first trimester
and then suddenly changes in the second. So,
I'm interested in the by week statistics, especially
given what happened last time (stillbirth at 20
weeks, due to a faulty placenta, low amniotic fluid,
etc). Basically, I want to have a sense of overall
how unlikely that was, and how unlikely other events
with similar outcomes are. Peace of mind and all
that.

I found one site so far:

http://www.pregnancyloss.info/statistics.htm

I'm curious if anyone else has any info. The 3%
cited in the second trimester is higher than I
expected (I was thinking it would be something
more like 1%).

I also can't tell from this site if the 5% for
weeks 6-12 means "5% of all pregnancies that get
this far end in miscarriage or stillbirth" or
"5% of all pregnancies that get this far end
in miscarriage or stillbirth in weeks 6-12".
In otherwords, is the 3% cited for the 2nd trimester
included in the 5% for weeks 6-12 (unlikely, but
still not entirely clear).

Thanks,
Emily

--
DS 5/02
Scheherazade, stillborn at 20 weeks 3/04
EDD Labor Day '05

"Emily" wrote in message
...
Hi folks,

I've heard that a surprising large percentage
of (known) pregnancies end in miscarriage, and
that the risk of miscarriage is highest in the
first trimester. It would seem surprising that
that the risk is even throughout the first trimester
and then suddenly changes in the second.

It's not.

The highest rate of "pregnancy failure" by far is in the first few weeks.
The risk drops with every landmark passed... It's almost like there are
these hurdles, and for every one a baby passes, the survival rate jumps.
First hurdle is implantation. A huge number of fertilized eggs just never
quite manage it. Next hurdle is cell differentiation and "getting into the
swing" of pregnancy hormone production. Either thing goes wrong and the
period is late or a "blighted ovum" occurs and the pregnancy just doesn't
get going. Next hurdle is the heartbeat. The baby I lost stopped growing
right around the time the heart should have started beating. I carried it
another week and a half and then miscarried a big (for that stage) placenta
and tiny embryo (placenta the size of a half dollar, only thicker, embryo
the size of a grain of rice.) The organs develop and the body changes
rapidly during those first 12 weeks... and that's when things are most
likely to go awry. It's also the time when the woman's hormones are
supporting the pregnancy more than the placenta is, and if something gets
out of whack there, either with the woman's hormones or placental function,
things can go wrong there, too.

So you start with a huge percentage not making it to implantation. A
significant percentage don't get going on the cell division properly or the
mother's hormones just don't do what they need to do to maintain the
pregnancy during the first weeks. Then some don't manage to get the heart
started, etc. etc.

Interesting tidbits I gleaned somewhere... when a baby implants often
determines likelihood of survival. An implantation at 12 days post ovulation
might mean an 86% miscarriage rate (and the baby I lost implanted late)
while an implantation at day 9 might only mean a 13% miscarriage rate. Yet
10% of viable pregnancies don't show signs of implantation (via HCG
production) until 14 dpo... So you can see there are a LOT of factors which
affect how well a pregnancy gets going and keeps going.

The reassuring thing is that with every day, the risk drops. You aren't
"just as likely" to miscarry at 10 weeks as at 6 weeks...

Jenrose

"Emily" wrote:

Thanks,
Emily

--
DS 5/02
Scheherazade, stillborn at 20 weeks 3/04
EDD Labor Day '05

Emily,
I do not have anything to add to your post except that I did not make
the connection that you are Emily, Scheherazade's mommy. I have not yet
offered you my congratulations on this pregnancy so I just wanted to let you
know that I am SO happy for you.
I really have been keeping you and the other m/c mommies in my thoughts
and prayers. I was really hoping to see you back here.
So, sorry to change the focus of the thread, but I just wanted to let
you know that I am still thinking of you and praying for you and-
CONGRATULATIONS!

-Kara.

On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 22:32:42 -0800, Emily wrote:

I'm curious if anyone else has any info. The 3% cited in the second
trimester is higher than I expected (I was thinking it would be
something more like 1%).

I think this 3% may include women who didn't have any prenatal testing
done until later in their pregnancy, only to find out their baby has died
way before that. As you say, it would be helpful to know if these numbers
reflect that actual m/c date or the date the baby died. In many of the
established first trimester m/c's, the baby has died up to several weeks
prior to the diagnosis. I have always read that after hearing a heartbeat,
the risk for m/c drops to ~1%.

The 1% stillbirth rate has always scared the hell out of me, until I
learned that in many cases there were already known complications before
birth. It is extremely rare to have stillbirth without knowing of
something wrong in advance. That settled my fear a bit.

No matter how you look at it: pregnancy is risky business. And the only
thing you can control, is your diet, which fortunately seems to have a
major effect on the outcome.

--
-- I
mommy to DS (July '02)
mommy to four tiny angels (28 Oct'03, 17 Feb'04, 20 May'04 & 28 Oct'04)
preggers with twins EDD August'05
guardian of DH (33)

Kara H wrote:
"Emily" wrote:
Emily,
I do not have anything to add to your post except that I did not make
the connection that you are Emily, Scheherazade's mommy. I have not yet
offered you my congratulations on this pregnancy so I just wanted to let you
know that I am SO happy for you.
I really have been keeping you and the other m/c mommies in my thoughts
and prayers. I was really hoping to see you back here.
So, sorry to change the focus of the thread, but I just wanted to let
you know that I am still thinking of you and praying for you and-
CONGRATULATIONS!

-Kara.

Thanks, Kara. I'm not consistent about putting Scheherazade
in my .sig, out of shyness I guess. Thanks for remembering
her

Emily
--
DS 5/02
Scheherazade, stillborn at 20 weeks, 3/04
EDD Labor Day '05

Jenrose wrote:
"Emily" wrote in message
...

Hi folks,

I've heard that a surprising large percentage
of (known) pregnancies end in miscarriage, and
that the risk of miscarriage is highest in the
first trimester. It would seem surprising that
that the risk is even throughout the first trimester
and then suddenly changes in the second.


It's not.

The highest rate of "pregnancy failure" by far is in the first few weeks.
The risk drops with every landmark passed... It's almost like there are
these hurdles, and for every one a baby passes, the survival rate jumps.
First hurdle is implantation. A huge number of fertilized eggs just never
quite manage it. Next hurdle is cell differentiation and "getting into the
swing" of pregnancy hormone production. Either thing goes wrong and the
period is late or a "blighted ovum" occurs and the pregnancy just doesn't
get going. Next hurdle is the heartbeat. The baby I lost stopped growing
right around the time the heart should have started beating. I carried it
another week and a half and then miscarried a big (for that stage) placenta
and tiny embryo (placenta the size of a half dollar, only thicker, embryo
the size of a grain of rice.) The organs develop and the body changes
rapidly during those first 12 weeks... and that's when things are most
likely to go awry. It's also the time when the woman's hormones are
supporting the pregnancy more than the placenta is, and if something gets
out of whack there, either with the woman's hormones or placental function,
things can go wrong there, too.

Thanks, Jenrose. So it sounds like when I saw a heartbeat on a
an early u/s (around or just before 6 weeks, dates aren't clear
yet), I'd already passed a lot of the hurdles then.

So you start with a huge percentage not making it to implantation. A
significant percentage don't get going on the cell division properly or the
mother's hormones just don't do what they need to do to maintain the
pregnancy during the first weeks. Then some don't manage to get the heart
started, etc. etc.

Interesting tidbits I gleaned somewhere... when a baby implants often
determines likelihood of survival. An implantation at 12 days post ovulation
might mean an 86% miscarriage rate (and the baby I lost implanted late)
while an implantation at day 9 might only mean a 13% miscarriage rate. Yet
10% of viable pregnancies don't show signs of implantation (via HCG
production) until 14 dpo... So you can see there are a LOT of factors which
affect how well a pregnancy gets going and keeps going.

The reassuring thing is that with every day, the risk drops. You aren't
"just as likely" to miscarry at 10 weeks as at 6 weeks...

Thanks. It is reassuring. I was the one-in-a-hundred (or one of
three in a hundred last time), but the peri and the OB both said
there's no reason to suspect that that's any more likely for
me this time than it is for anyone. And, it seems that I don't
have any systematic trouble with the first part -- that is, out of three
pg, no signs of early miscarriage. And while I think that a loss
at 20 weeks is in some ways harder than a loss at 6 or 8 or 10, I think
it's easier in other ways than *multiple* losses at 6 or 8 or 10.
(I do think I had one *really* early miscarriage -- no positive
hpt -- but that hardly counts.)

--
Emily
DS 5/02
Scheherazade, stillborn at 20 weeks, 3/04
EDD Labor Day '05

Ilse Witch wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 22:32:42 -0800, Emily wrote:


I'm curious if anyone else has any info. The 3% cited in the second
trimester is higher than I expected (I was thinking it would be
something more like 1%).


I think this 3% may include women who didn't have any prenatal testing
done until later in their pregnancy, only to find out their baby has died
way before that. As you say, it would be helpful to know if these numbers
reflect that actual m/c date or the date the baby died. In many of the
established first trimester m/c's, the baby has died up to several weeks
prior to the diagnosis. I have always read that after hearing a heartbeat,
the risk for m/c drops to ~1%.

Hm, I'll bet that just seeing one (on u/s, before it can be heard)
probably isn't quite the same. Still, it was reassuring.

The 1% stillbirth rate has always scared the hell out of me, until I
learned that in many cases there were already known complications before
birth. It is extremely rare to have stillbirth without knowing of
something wrong in advance. That settled my fear a bit.

Tell me about it! Especially after being in that 1% -- though
mine was in some sense an earlier problem that took a while to
manifest, and it wasn't sudden.

No matter how you look at it: pregnancy is risky business. And the only
thing you can control, is your diet, which fortunately seems to have a
major effect on the outcome.


I'm doing what I can (avoiding all the stuff to avoid, and eating
reasonably well, though I could do even better).

For me, it came down to the desire to have another child outweighing
the risk of going through what we went through again...

Emily

On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 08:18:23 -0800, Emily wrote:

For me, it came down to the desire to have another child outweighing
the risk of going through what we went through again...

And I'll keep my fingers and toes crossed until you know for absolute 100%
certain that all is well this time! I breathed a big sigh of relief after
the good u/s yesterday, I cannot imagine having to wait another 10w or
more before feeling that relief. I hope you can cope somehow, if you ever
feel the need to rant, feel free! My yahoo dot com username is ivbemmel,
you're welcome to drop by any time.

--
-- I
mommy to DS (July '02)
mommy to four tiny angels (28 Oct'03, 17 Feb'04, 20 May'04 & 28 Oct'04)
preggers with twins EDD August'05
guardian of DH (33)

Emily wrote:
Hi folks,

I've heard that a surprising large percentage
of (known) pregnancies end in miscarriage, and
that the risk of miscarriage is highest in the
first trimester. It would seem surprising that
that the risk is even throughout the first trimester
and then suddenly changes in the second. So,
I'm interested in the by week statistics, especially
given what happened last time (stillbirth at 20
weeks, due to a faulty placenta, low amniotic fluid,
etc). Basically, I want to have a sense of overall
how unlikely that was, and how unlikely other events
with similar outcomes are. Peace of mind and all
that.

I found one site so far:

http://www.pregnancyloss.info/statistics.htm

I'm curious if anyone else has any info. The 3%
cited in the second trimester is higher than I
expected (I was thinking it would be something
more like 1%).

I also can't tell from this site if the 5% for
weeks 6-12 means "5% of all pregnancies that get
this far end in miscarriage or stillbirth" or
"5% of all pregnancies that get this far end
in miscarriage or stillbirth in weeks 6-12".
In otherwords, is the 3% cited for the 2nd trimester
included in the 5% for weeks 6-12 (unlikely, but
still not entirely clear).

Thanks,
Emily

--
DS 5/02
Scheherazade, stillborn at 20 weeks 3/04
EDD Labor Day '05

Congratulations Emily! I didn't see your earlier announcement.

Miscarriage rates vary enormously based on the age of the woman. For
instance according to Satistics Canada women 20-34 had the lowest rate
of losses after 20 weeks -- 5.3/1000 births. The rate was higher for
older women as well as for teenage mothers (this is 1998 data). The
stillbirth rate was also higher in multiple pregnancies than for
singletons (0.5% of singletons were lost at 20 or more weeks.)

In terms of earlier losses this again varies tremendously depending on
age. I hope you do find it reassuring that with just about every
passing day at this point your risk goes down.

Elle
2/16/2005

Elle wrote:
Congratulations Emily! I didn't see your earlier announcement.

Miscarriage rates vary enormously based on the age of the woman. For
instance according to Satistics Canada women 20-34 had the lowest rate
of losses after 20 weeks -- 5.3/1000 births. The rate was higher for
older women as well as for teenage mothers (this is 1998 data). The
stillbirth rate was also higher in multiple pregnancies than for
singletons (0.5% of singletons were lost at 20 or more weeks.)

In terms of earlier losses this again varies tremendously depending on
age. I hope you do find it reassuring that with just about every
passing day at this point your risk goes down.

Thanks, Elle. 0.5% of singletons after 20 or more weeks is
a very reassuring number.

Emily
--
DS 5/02
Scheherazade, stillborn 20 weeks, 3/04
EDD Labor Day '05