Wow, I just saw my last post was in August.

A common question I get from women with recurrent pregnancy loss is what is the chance I will have another miscarriage.

There have been several studies answering this question.

A publication by Brigham and colleagues (1999), from the UK followed the pregnancies of 325 women with recurrent pregnancy loss with unknown cause (idiopathic) in a specialized miscarriage center, where they were seen every two weeks with ultrasounds and supportive care until 12 weeks. The researchers found consistent with other groups, is the two main factors that influenced the likelihood of success in a future pregnancy is the age of a woman and the number of prior miscarriages. These researchers found that age of the woman is the main risk factor for another miscarriage.

Using their data, Brigham and colleagues developed a predictive model to help counsel patients with idiopathic recurrent pregnancy loss. For example, using their predictive model, a woman who is 20 years old and has had 2 miscarriages, has a 92% chance of a successful pregnancy, if she is 25 years old, she has a 89% chance, if she is aged 30, she has 84% chance, if she is 35 years old, she has a 77% chance and at age 40 she has a 69% chance. The other important predictor is the number of prior miscarriages, for example the predictive model shows that a women aged 30 with two prior miscarriages has a 84% likelihood of a successful pregnancy, if she had three prior miscarriages, she has a 80% likelihood of a successful pregnancy and a woman with 5 prior miscarriages at age 30 will be predicted to have 71% chance of having a successful pregnancy. So the reassuring thing to know and what I tell my patients is that their prognosis is good. As many couples will lose hope after multiple miscarriages and the data shows they have a good chance of not having another miscarriage.

Brigham SA, Conlon C, Farquharson RG. A longitudinal study of pregnancy outcome following idiopathic recurrent miscarriage. Hum Reprod. 1999 Nov;14(11):2868-71. doi: 10.1093/humrep/14.11.2868. PMID: 10548638.