What is Miscarriage & How is it Recognised?
For expectant parents, the pregnancy period is a sacred and precious time. Individuals start to change their lives for their expected babies during this period and are filled with great excitement. However, avoiding such a bad situation could happen to an expectant mother as miscarriage may not always be possible, and sometimes miscarriage occurs due to the mother’s health problems, or sometimes due to the baby’s own developmental issues. When such a situation arises, the question of how miscarriage is recognised comes to the mind of the parents.
What is Miscarriage (Pregnancy Loss)?
Although not much information is known, bleeding and vaginal discharge are common signs of miscarriage. If pain accompanies the bleeding, miscarriage may be suspected, especially if bleeding is encountered frequently in the first month of pregnancy.
The most important point to be noted about this issue is that not every bleeding may be a sign of miscarriage. In medical literature, the situation of losing the baby before the 20th week is considered as a miscarriage, and after the 20th week, when the baby detaches from the uterus and comes out, it is called premature birth.
Unfortunately, a baby who has a chance of survival after the 20th week cannot survive if it comes out before the 20th week. Many miscarriage cases occur before the 15th week and therefore the baby is completely lost.
It is not always possible to predict the occurrence of miscarriage, but the bleeding, pains, nausea, and muscle cramps experienced during miscarriage indicate to mothers that a miscarriage has occurred.
If there is bleeding that turns brownish or bright red, and abdominal pain accompanies it, you as an expectant mother may be at risk of miscarriage. Especially, pains occurring regularly every 15-20 minutes in the back are a serious sign in this regard. In such cases, and if you experience one or several of these situations, you may need to visit your doctor and have your checks done.
What are the Symptoms of Miscarriage?
Symptoms of miscarriage range from light brownish vaginal spotting or bleeding to heavy bleeding. Other symptoms include:
- Loss of pregnancy symptoms such as nausea or vomiting
- Cramping and pain in the lower abdomen
- White-pink fluid coming from the vagina
- Passing tissue or clots from the vagina
- Feeling faint and light-headed
- Contractions
- Pain starting in a small part of the back and moving to the lower part of the abdomen
- Rapid weight loss
- Not experiencing what should be present in pregnancy
However, it is also important not to think that these symptoms will occur in every expectant mother. Because some expectant mothers may experience a miscarriage without showing any symptoms, and this situation generally manifests itself under a doctor’s control. Therefore, even if you do not experience miscarriage symptoms, you should not neglect your doctor checks regularly. Thus, the detection or treatment of unwanted situations that may occur during pregnancy will be possible.
What Causes Miscarriage During Pregnancy?
Miscarriage can sometimes be due to biological problems of the mother and baby, and sometimes it can be a condition affected by the mother’s lifestyle and environmental factors. Therefore, there can be many different reasons for miscarriage. The main reasons can be listed as follows:
- Smoking, alcohol, and drug use, exposure to environmental toxins, food poisoning, and pollution,
- Physiological disorders of the mother that make pregnancy unsuitable, physical disorders of the uterus,
- Mother being subjected to violence, experiencing psychological breakdown, and being under intense stress,
- Acute infections, febrile diseases,
- Hormonal problems,
- The embryo not descending correctly into the womb,
- Mother being over 35 years old,
- Folate and folic acid deficiency,
- Being excessively overweight or underweight,
- Having heart failure,
- Poor and inadequate eating habits.
Kidney problems, hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism, hypertension and blood pressure problems, diabetes mellitus, and other disorders unfortunately increase the risk of miscarriage during pregnancy. It is known that genetic problems of the embryo also cause miscarriage. This situation is a natural mechanism of the body and prevents the birth of babies struggling with genetic problems by the body.
