The most common sign of miscarriage is vaginal bleeding.
This can vary from light spotting or brownish discharge to heavy bleeding and bright-red blood or clots. The bleeding may come and go over several days.
Symptoms of an early miscarriage
You might be having an early miscarriage if: you're bleeding from your vagina. you've cramps in your lower abdomen – these can feel like bad period pains. there's fluid or tissue coming from your vagina.
It can be very hard emotionally to wait for the miscarriage because you don't know when it will happen. When it starts, you will notice spotting and cramping and then, fairly quickly, you will start bleeding heavily. The cramps will get worse until they feel like contractions, and you will pass the pregnancy tissue.
The main sign of miscarriage is vaginal spotting or bleeding, which can vary from slight brownish discharge to very heavy bleeding. Other symptoms include: cramping and pain in the abdomen. mild to severe back pain. weight loss.
A missed miscarriage, also known as a missed abortion or a silent miscarriage, occurs when a fetus is no longer alive, but the body does not recognize the pregnancy loss or expel the pregnancy tissue. As a result, the placenta may continue to release hormones, so you may continue to experience signs of pregnancy.
Symptoms of a miscarriage
The main sign of a miscarriage is vaginal bleeding, which may be followed by cramping and pain in your lower abdomen. If you have vaginal bleeding, contact a GP or your midwife. Most GPs can refer you to an early pregnancy unit at your local hospital straight away if necessary.
It can be hard to distinguish between early pregnancy loss and a period. If bleeding is heavier than is usual, appears suddenly, or occurs with unusual abdominal cramping, this can indicate pregnancy loss.
Most miscarriages - 8 out of 10 (80 percent) - happen in the first trimester before the 12th week of pregnancy. Miscarriage in the second trimester (between 13 and 19 weeks) happens in 1 to 5 in 100 (1 to 5 percent) pregnancies. Pregnancy loss that happens after 20 weeks is called stillbirth.
You'll experience symptoms similar to a heavy period, such as cramping and heavy vaginal bleeding. You may also experience vaginal bleeding for up to 3 weeks. In most units, you'll be sent home for the miscarriage to complete. This is safe, but ring your hospital if the bleeding becomes very heavy.
Currently, to determine if a miscarriage is happening, blood tests to measure for a hormone produced by the placenta, human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), are needed.
It takes time for your hormones to return to their pre-pregnancy levels after a miscarriage. The amount of the pregnancy hormone human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) may still be high enough to trigger a positive result on a pregnancy test for several weeks after a miscarriage.
Not all miscarriages are physically painful, but most people have cramping. The cramps are really strong for some people, and light for others (like a period or less). It's also common to have vaginal bleeding and to pass large blood clots up to the size of a lemon.
Most of the tissue passes within 2 to 4 hours after the cramping and bleeding start. Cramping usually stops within a day. Light bleeding or spotting can go on for 4 to 6 weeks. Two weeks after the tissue passes, your ob-gyn may do an ultrasound exam or other tests to make sure all the tissue has passed.
But sometimes the body has trouble passing the tissue, and the miscarriage remains incomplete until a woman seeks treatment. If the tissue isn't removed, the incomplete miscarriage can cause very heavy bleeding, prolonged bleeding, or an infection.
While excessive stress isn't good for your overall health, there's no evidence that stress results in miscarriage. About 10% to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage.
This treatment involves a surgical procedure known as a dilatation and curettage (D&C) which is done under a general anaesthetic. The procedure will remove any pregnancy tissue from your uterus. It is successful in 95 to 100 per cent of cases but there are small surgical risks.
Many physicians advise pregnant women to sleep on their left side. Previous studies have linked back and right-side sleeping with a higher risk of stillbirth, reduced fetal growth, low birth weight, and preeclampsia, a life-threatening high blood pressure disorder that affects the mother.
Most early miscarriages look like heavy menstrual periods. If it's a very early miscarriage – before 4 to 5 weeks – then there might be no visible tissue or large blood clots. However, from 6 weeks, it's likely larger clots will be visible.
No sex, tampons, or douching for 2 weeks.
We recommend waiting until after 2 normal periods to attempt pregnancy again.