One of the more common reproductive disorders we treat at all of our offices is a condition known as recurrent miscarriage syndrome or recurrent pregnancy loss. Recurrent pregnancy loss has been recognized by medical science for centuries. However, only in the last 30 years have effective diagnosis techniques and therapies become available to treat this relatively common syndrome.
Some women have great difficulty achieving pregnancy, only to lose many or most of these hard won pregnancies to miscarriage.Other women have no difficulty achieving pregnancy, however may encounter difficulty caring the baby to term, and unfortunately lose multiple pregnancies to repeat miscarriages.
Traditionally a diagnosis of recurrent pregnancy loss is made after two consecutive miscarriages, or three total miscarriages.
At Fertility Treatment Center, we know that having a baby is of paramount importance to our patients, so we tend to expand our definition of recurrent miscarriage syndrome to include women who have experienced two miscarriages—consecutive or not.
Nearly all women diagnosed with recurrent miscarriage have one or more of the following issues:
- Uterine abnormalities:
- Uterine fibroids,
- large uterine polyps, or
- uterine septum, which can be easily diagnosed and corrected through relativity simple outpatient surgical procedures.
- Uterine infections:
- Can be diagnosed by a simple Q tip test, and usually treated with a course of carefully selected antibiotics.
- Hormonal disorders:
- These include very low thyroid levels or
- very high prolactin levels,
- low progesterone level, or
- high insulin levels.
- Genetic disorders:
- Includes shifted chromosome sections in the mother or the father, or
- surprisingly, very high sperm counts resulting in multiple fertilization of the egg.
- Immune system disorders:
- These are the most common, and include blood clotting abnormalities resulting in microscopic blood clots plugging up the early placenta,
- antibody attack of the placenta,
- underproduction of the folate vitamin, or
- incompatibility of the mother’s and father’s immune system HLA type.
Each category of recurrent pregnancy loss has its own tests, and nearly all diagnosis have a specific therapy. FTC does organized, efficient diagnostic evaluations and customizes treatments that are tailored to the diagnosis and to the individual patient. This maximizes the chance of holding onto the pregnancy until the due date and of delivering a healthy baby.
