About miscarriage statistics

Defining and understanding

When it comes to the concept of miscarriage, quite a lot of people are in possession of only the most rudimentary knowledge. And if by chance, there is a need for a more in depth dealing with miscarriage as such, the most basic knowledge will just not suffice, unfortunately. One of the reasons is that this is not something to be taken lightly, for a number of complications and undesired side-effects can quite often occur, leaving the person in question, at times, even struggling for her life.

Miscarriage is described as a loss of pregnancy that occurs in the initial 20 weeks of gestation. However, miscarriage can also occur after the aforementioned period, and in that case, it is referred to as stillbirth. Taking all the above mentioned facts into consideration, and from a medical point of view, miscarriage is viewed as an unfortunate occurrence. But, to the couple who has been attempting to conceive, in many cases this can be quite devastating and a major set back in their future attempts for longer period of time.

Statistical data

According to the official statistics based on a week-to-week observation, it is revealed that the greatest majority of miscarriage instances (50 to 75%) take place in the course of the initial two weeks of gestation. In most of these cases, the women in question are not even aware of them being pregnant at all.

According to the statistics on pregnancy, on an annual basis on the US soil there are 4.4 million officially confirmed pregnancies. However, quite unfortunate and fairly concerning is the fact that as much as 900,000 to 1,000,000 of the aforementioned pregnancies end up in a miscarriage. Those members of the female population who are in their childbearing age period have 15 to 20% chances of 'suffering' from a miscarriage. Another highly concerning and alarming fact is that these rates get increased with each subsequent pregnancy or miscarriage. Namely, in case of the second pregnancy the risk reaches the 25% mark.

However, on the bright side, those women who have already suffered one miscarriage are also entitled to a lot of joy. Namely, 80% of them will have a successful pregnancy the other time around. In case miscarriage tends to occur more than once (three to four times at least), then it is referred to as the recurrent miscarriage. Those women who have had the misfortune of suffering from multiple miscarriages have a miscarriage rate of 40% with regards to their following pregnancy.