Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012;7(5):e37109.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0037109. Epub 2012 May 21.

Miscarriage, preterm delivery, and stillbirth: large variations in rates within a cohort of Australian women

Alexis J Hure  1 , Jennifer R Powers, Gita D Mishra, Danielle L Herbert, Julie E Byles, Deborah Loxton
Affiliations

Miscarriage, preterm delivery, and stillbirth: large variations in rates within a cohort of Australian women

Alexis J Hure et al. PLoS One. 2012.

Abstract

Objectives: We aimed to use simple clinical questions to group women and provide their specific rates of miscarriage, preterm delivery, and stillbirth for reference. Further, our purpose was to describe who has experienced particularly low or high rates of each event.

Methods: Data were collected as part of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health, a national prospective cohort. Reproductive histories were obtained from 5806 women aged 31-36 years in 2009, who had self-reported an outcome for one or more pregnancy. Age at first birth, number of live births, smoking status, fertility problems, use of in vitro fertilisation (IVF), education and physical activity were the variables that best separated women into groups for calculating the rates of miscarriage, preterm delivery, and stillbirth.

Results: Women reported 10,247 live births, 2544 miscarriages, 1113 preterm deliveries, and 113 stillbirths. Miscarriage was correlated with stillbirth (r = 0.09, P<0.001). The calculable rate of miscarriage ranged from 11.3 to 86.5 miscarriages per 100 live births. Women who had high rates of miscarriage typically had fewer live births, were more likely to smoke and were more likely to have tried unsuccessfully to conceive for ≥12 months. The highest proportion of live preterm delivery (32.2%) occurred in women who had one live birth, had tried unsuccessfully to conceive for ≥12 months, had used IVF, and had 12 years education or equivalent. Women aged 14-19.99 years at their first birth and reported low physical activity had 38.9 stillbirths per 1000 live births, compared to the lowest rate at 5.5 per 1000 live births.

Conclusion: Different groups of women experience vastly different rates of each adverse pregnancy event. We have used simple questions and established reference data that will stratify women into low- and high-rate groups, which may be useful in counselling those who have experienced miscarriage, preterm delivery, or stillbirth, plus women with fertility intent.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

References

    1. Simmons RK, Singh G, Maconochie N, Doyle P, Green J. Experience of miscarriage in the UK: qualitative findings from the National Women's Health Study. Soc Sci Med. 2006;63:1934–1946. - PubMed
    1. Tulandi T, Al-Fozan HM. Levine D, Barbieri RL, Falk SJ, editors. Spontaneous abortion: Risk factors, etiology, clinical manifesations, and diagnostic evaluations. UpToDate. 2011.
    1. Wilcox AJ, Weinberg CR, O'Connor JF, Baird DD, Schlatterer JP, et al. Incidence of early loss of pregnancy. N Engl J Med. 1988;319:189–194. - PubMed
    1. El-Sayed MM, Mohamed SA, Jones MH. Expectant management of first-trimester miscarriage. J Obstet Gynaecol. 2009;29:681–685. - PubMed
    1. Forbes LS. The evolutionary biology of spontaneous abortion in humans. Trends Ecol Evol. 1997;12:446–450. - PubMed

Publication types