How a miscarriage is managed will not affect the woman’s later fertility, researchers have reported.
These findings will reassure women that their choice of miscarriage treatment will not affect their chances of having a healthy baby in future.
Dr Lindsay Smith of the East Somerset Research Consortium, UK, and colleagues looked at the rate of successful pregnancy after a spontaneous miscarriage in the first trimester. Fifteen per cent of pregnancies end this way.
They compared fertility rates following three treatment methods: expectant (a watch and wait approach), medical management, or surgical evacuation. Participants came from pregnancy clinics at hospitals in south west England, and were allocated to one of the three treatments at random. A total of 762 women took part.
On the website of the British Medical Journal, the researchers report that 84 per cent reported a subsequent pregnancy within five years of the miscarriage.
The live birth rate was similar in the three groups – 79 per cent in the expectant management and medical groups, and 82 per cent in the surgical group.
But "older women and those suffering three or more miscarriages were significantly less likely to subsequently give birth", the authors add.
They conclude that method of miscarriage management does not affect subsequent pregnancy rates. "Women can be reassured that long term fertility concerns need not affect their choice of miscarriage management," they write, adding: "This information should complement the information that they might want to receive."
Previous analyses from the same study showed that the three methods are also equivalent in terms of gynaecological infection risk.
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