MONDAY, March 3 (HealthDay News) -- Women who present for their first trimester prenatal visit between six and 11 weeks' gestation and who have no abnormal symptoms have a less than 1.6 percent chance of miscarriage, researchers report in the March issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Stephen Tong, Ph.D., of Monash Medical Centre in Victoria, Australia, and colleagues conducted a study of 696 asymptomatic women who attended an antenatal clinic between six and 11 weeks' gestation and who underwent an ultrasound examination that confirmed fetal cardiac activity.
In all, 11 women miscarried (1.6 percent of the sample). At six weeks, the risk was high -- 9.4 percent -- but as gestation advanced the risk of miscarriage declined rapidly. At eight, nine and 10 weeks' gestation, the risk was 1.5 percent, 0.5 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively.
"Our data may be useful as a counseling tool to reassure such women at the end of their first prenatal visit that their risk of loss is already very low," the authors conclude. "There obviously needs to be some caution in quoting such a low risk of miscarriage if a woman presents with an increased a priori risk such as maternal age, assisted reproduction or increased parity," they add.
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