In a new study, researchers found that women who experience a miscarriage appear to be more likely to die prematurely (before age 70), particularly from heart disease, than women with all other pregnancy outcomes.
The association between miscarriage and premature death was particularly strong for women who had miscarriages early in their reproductive life or who had recurrent miscarriages.
The finding suggests that miscarriage could be “an “early marker of future health risk in women.
The research was conducted by a team at Harvard University and elsewhere.
Spontaneous abortion (the official term for a miscarriage) is one of the most common adverse outcomes of pregnancy, affecting an estimated 12-24% of known pregnancies.
Substantial evidence indicates that women with a history of miscarriage have a greater risk of high blood pressure, heart diseases, and type 2 diabetes, but evidence relating miscarriage to the risk of early death is scant and inconsistent.
In the study, the team used data for 101,681 female nurses taking part in the Nurses’ Health Study II—an ongoing study of US women of reproductive age at the beginning of the study (25-42 years) – whose pregnancies and health was followed over a 24-year period between 1993 and 2017.
The researchers found that among the 101,681 women observed over time, 25.6% (26,102) had at least one pregnancy ending in miscarriage.
During the 24 years of follow-up, there had been 2,936 premature deaths among the women, including 1,346 cancer deaths and 269 cardiovascular disease deaths.
Death rates were higher for women experiencing three or more miscarriages and for women reporting their first miscarriage before the age of 24.
Women who miscarried were 19% more likely to die prematurely than women who did not miscarry.
When cause-specific mortality was evaluated, the link between miscarriage and premature death was strongest for heart deaths—a 48% heightened risk—but was not related to premature death from cancer.
The team says future study needs to examine whether experiencing the spontaneous loss of a pregnancy merely unmasks pre-existing risks or instead triggers or accelerates the development of premature death.
The study is published in The BMJ. One author of the study is Yi-Xin Wang.
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