Early Miscarriage - Losing a Baby in the First Trimester

A friend of mine just found out that the baby she had known about for all of a week or so is not viable. Basically, that means there is no heartbeat, no baby. She should be six weeks pregnant, and the embryo measured at five weeks. That means it stopped growing a week ago. 

That brought back memories. My first pregnancy ended almost exactly like my friend’s. I began light spotting nine days after I found out I was pregnant, about at the six week mark. An ultrasound revealed an embryo marked at around five weeks with no detectable heartbeat. A follow up ultrasound a week later revealed, basically, nothing. No sac, no detectable embryonic mass, nothing. It was over. Truthfully, it never was. What was even more heartbreaking, for both me and my friend, is that your body still feels pregnant. Breasts are swollen and tender; waistband still tight; still nauseous and retching at smells; still fatigued, tired, and weepy. It seems a cruel trick of nature. 

It is said that approximately 30% of pregnancies end in early miscarriages, some even before the woman knew she was pregnant. Some women assume they had a slightly late, marginally heavier than normal, period. An early miscarriage refers to any that occur before 20 weeks of pregnancy, but a large percentage of these miscarriages are in the first trimester, or before 12 weeks of pregnancy. 

One so-called miscarriage is a blighted ovum. A blighted ovum happens when a fertilized egg attaches to the uterine wall, but an embryo does not develop. An ultrasound will show no sign of an embryo. The placenta continues to grow for a short while, and pregnancy hormones will rise, leading a woman’s body to believe that she is still pregnant. She may have had a positive pregnancy test because of the hormone levels. Only an ultrasound will reveal an empty sac, or just an empty uterus. It is thought that a blighted ovum is the cause of about 50% of early miscarriages, and is most generally the result of chromosomal problems. It is important to understand that, to you and your partner, you have lost a baby, and it is important to grieve as you would any other loss.