Hi,
My name is Jasmine and I have experienced two miscarriages after three years of infertility. I had acupuncture and taken Chinese herbs over the last year and I finally got pregnant again. I am 6 weeks now. Ten days ago though, I had a bleed and abdominal cramps and I decided to take progesterone pessaries as my cousin had a miscarriage and almost miscarried the second time but was prescribed progesterone pessaries and went on to have a healthy baby. Nonetheless, I have been studying about the miscarriages a lot and I have solid knowledge in this field I can say. Furthermore, the NHS would investigate what is wrong with a women only after 3 miscarriages, despite age. You can be over 40, it doesn't matter to them. The money must be used on better purposes, I guess. My cousin then had another healthy baby after a threatened miscarriage when she was again treated with progesterone. Luckily, I have a box of this hormone from her. So I took the progesterone and the bleeding and cramping stopped immediately(after an hour or so). I went to my GP to ask for advice and she said that I should stop taking progesterone as it was not in their guidelines to prescribe. Which I did but after two days I was experiencing more bleeding and cramping and I started progesterone again so the symptoms subsided and I had a scan yesterday were we could see the embryo and the fetal heart. I went to see my GP again who was still not happy to prescribe progesterone but she privately refer me to a fertility specialist. They would usually prescribe progesterone only after assisted reproductive techniques(?!), obviously to increase the chances of a successful outcome, but they are not happy to prescribe it to women who conceive naturally. Is this only a coincidence or these ''specialists'' are keen on pushing women who miscarry to go on and have IVFs as there are huge money to be won from this industry, when most women would only need a progesterone prescription for the first trimester of the pregnancy to avoid all this unnecessary distress and loss of human life?
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Miscarriage/pregnancy loss
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123jasmine · 02/10/2013 11:40
HI Jasmine I'm sorry you are having a rocky start to this pregnancy, it must be very worrying for you. Do come and join the recurrent miscarriage thread on this board - we apply the criteria much less strictly than the NHS do 
The reason that the NICE guidelines are only to investigate after 3 miscarriages in a row is that even for that group of women (1% of the population) who have three miscarriages, a reason is only found in 50% of cases. I've had 4MC, I do understand how frustrating it feels when nobody is taking it seriously and it's such a devastating thing to go through.
I was on progesterone in my last pregnancy - opinion is divided whether it is helpful but it seems generally agreed it does no harm, other than to prop up a failing pregnancy. My last miscarriage occurred later than the previous ones, probably due to the progesterone. Lesley Regan thinks that low progesterone is a symptom of a failing pregnancy and not the cause. This time round I'm taking it earlier in the cycle as it's supposed to give optimal womb lining for implantation, on the advice of Professor Quenby from Coventry. It's not expensive, my GP was happy to prescribe it on a consultant's say-so even though it's not in their guidelines.
most women would only need a progesterone prescription for the first trimester of the pregnancy to avoid all this unnecessary distress and loss of human life I think unfortunately it is much, much more complicated than that. It's an emerging field and more research is happening, but there is no magic bullet that will make everything ok.
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