Quantifying loss in order to prevent it

Statistics.

Most clinical trials and research studies have focused on clinically recognized pregnancies, those observed by a clinician through ultrasound, blood HcG, or tissue analysis after loss. By that definition, ~15% of pregnancies end in a miscarriage. However, that definition misses most losses between 4 and 7 weeks gestation, before clinical confirmation of the pregnancy happens with an initial prenatal visit. When including all pregnancies from 4 weeks, an estimated 30% of pregnancies end in miscarriage.

~30%of pregnancies end in miscarriage once you count from four weeks, and most of those end before a pregnancy is ever confirmed

Clinically recognized: about 15% of confirmed pregnancies
Very early: before a test could confirm one

each dot is one pregnancy

1 in 3women meet the criteria for PTSD after a loss

each dot is one woman, after a miscarriage

~1 in 20women have two or more miscarriages, recurrent pregnancy loss, or RPL

each dot is one woman, over a lifetime

~2 in 5miscarriages happen to the small group of women who have more than one loss

A miscarriage: five in all, the pair set apart are one woman's two losses
No miscarriage: the other sixteen women

the same twenty women: red marks a loss

~1 million

miscarriages are treated each year in the U.S.

The true cost...

to relationships, careers, mental health, and family finances have never been quantified.

Sources and how these figures were derivedSources: recognized-pregnancy risk 15.3%, Quenby et al., The Lancet (2021). The ~30% figure counts loss from a positive test at about four weeks; see How we count loss on the Contributing Factors page, and the split between recognized and very early loss follows from those two figures rather than being separately measured. The lifetime figures, that 23.1% of women have a miscarriage, about 5% have two or more, and about two in five losses fall to that smaller group, all derive from one table of lifetime risk by number of losses in Lidegaard et al., Acta Obstet Gynecol Scand (2020), a 40-year Danish national register study; the two-in-five share is our arithmetic on that table, not a published estimate. Post-traumatic stress:Farren et al., Am J Obstet Gynecol (2020). ~1M treated losses per year, PBS NewsHour (2024); the CDC publishes no official count.

Spotted an error or want to suggest research for our review? Write to us at research@delphinefoundation.org.