AIBU to think this statistic about missed miscarriages must be wrong?

[ActonBell]

As someone who has experienced a previous loss I’m finding myself periodically obsessing over stats about miscarriage and found this on the Ava website:
‘On average miscarriage occurs in 12 – 24% of clinically confirmed pregnancies. Missed miscarriage contributes to over 50% of miscarriages.’

More than half of miscarriages are missed miscarriages? That doesn’t sound right to me, even if they’re excluding miscarriages which weren’t ‘clinically confirmed pregnancies’, I.e. miscarriages where someone didn’t know they were pregnant or had a very early loss.

They link this sentence to a study of pregnancies in Finland. Can anyone help me understand this study? I still can’t work out where the more than 50% is coming from.

Here’s the original piece:
www.avawomen.com/avaworld/missed-miscarriage/

Here’s the study they link to:
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31747000/

Apologies in advance if I’m being daft and the answer is obvious.

I dont think the first source is correct, the study says:
"The proportion of blighted ovum of all miscarriages decreased from 25.4% in 1998 to 12.8% in 2016. In contrast, the proportion of missed abortion has increased from 30.3 to 38.8% and that of spontaneous abortion from 20.8% in 1998 to 27.3% in 2016

Missed abortion was the dominant type of miscarriage, and its proportion has increased. Conversely, the proportion of blighted ovum has clearly decreased. "

Thanks. So I think what that study says is that if you exclude miscarriages where people didn’t know they were pregnant, chemical pregnancies and ectopics and molar pregnancies, then 8-15% of women miscarry. And of those miscarriages, 38% were missed miscarriages in 2016. Is that right?

So the sentence on the Ava website is nonsense?

If they’re going to sell me on the scientific accuracy of their ovulation prediction device I feel like they should have accurate information about stuff like this on their website.

The article on Ava seems poorly written and misquoted statistics. I'd take anything like that with a pinch of salt and remember that some journalists pick and choose statistics that match what they want to say rather than giving unbiased reviews of literature.

I've always been really confused about the actual definition of a missed miscarriage - it seems to be a miscarriage that is observed by scan before the woman starts bleeding? But isn't that dependent on when you scan? One of my three miscarriages was identified at a scan at 8 weeks but I opted to let nature take its course and it passed ten days later - so was that a missed miscarriage, but it wouldn't have been if it had been my first miscarriage and so I'd been waiting for a 12 week scan?

I read somewhere once that only 2% of miscarriages are missed ones and there’s a 1% chance you’ll have two missed miscarriages in a row. Maybe that was nonsense but I did feel particularly angry when I had two in a row discovered at the 12 week scan.

@Hardbackwriter

I've always been really confused about the actual definition of a missed miscarriage - it seems to be a miscarriage that is observed by scan before the woman starts bleeding? But isn't that dependent on when you scan? One of my three miscarriages was identified at a scan at 8 weeks but I opted to let nature take its course and it passed ten days later - so was that a missed miscarriage, but it wouldn't have been if it had been my first miscarriage and so I'd been waiting for a 12 week scan?

Yes I guess that’s true. Had you not found out during an early scan, it would just have been considered a regular miscarriage.

I had two MMC in a row with zero bleeding or cramping at all. Even saw the HB at 6 and 8 weeks with the second one. Devastating, worst thing I’ve ever experienced.

@Thatisnotwhatisaid

I read somewhere once that only 2% of miscarriages are missed ones and there’s a 1% chance you’ll have two missed miscarriages in a row. Maybe that was nonsense but I did feel particularly angry when I had two in a row discovered at the 12 week scan.

I have had 4 miscarriages, one a late ‘miscarriage’ at 20 weeks. The other 3 were missed miscarriage. In each case the foetus had stopped developing at around 8 weeks but wasn’t detected until my 12 week scan for the first two and an early scan at 9 weeks with the other.

@Hardbackwriter

I've always been really confused about the actual definition of a missed miscarriage - it seems to be a miscarriage that is observed by scan before the woman starts bleeding? But isn't that dependent on when you scan? One of my three miscarriages was identified at a scan at 8 weeks but I opted to let nature take its course and it passed ten days later - so was that a missed miscarriage, but it wouldn't have been if it had been my first miscarriage and so I'd been waiting for a 12 week scan?

Me too - and I think what you say here makes sense of the trends shown in the study. So looking at the full study it says ‘blighted ovum’ miscarriages have gone down and that may be because ultrasound technologies have got better. So, previously the ultrasound may not have found a very early pregnancy and then the woman miscarries and it’s put down as a blighted ovum but actually there was a fetal pole, it just couldn’t be seen on the ultrasound.

Likewise as ultrasound technology improves and more people have early scans you’d expect to have more miscarriages detected before symptoms start so more ‘missed’ miscarriages. But like you say this doesn’t mean they were a missed miscarriage at the 12 week scan which is what we usually think of.

@Purpleweeks

The article on Ava seems poorly written and misquoted statistics. I'd take anything like that with a pinch of salt and remember that some journalists pick and choose statistics that match what they want to say rather than giving unbiased reviews of literature.

Agreed. I’m just especially grumpy about this one because it seems to be flat out wrong and it’s from a company trying to persuade you they understand fertility struggles and pregnancy. It’s just scaring people unnecessarily.

@OwlBeThere
@Thatisnotwhatisaid
@Hardbackwriter
I’m so sorry for your losses

@ActonBell for you too and (if I'm interpreting correctly) I hope you're on the right side of the statistics this time. I was very lucky and went on to be on the right side of the statistics twice, but I'll never forget what a bleak horrible place it was when they had always gone against me

@ActonBell I hope things work out for you. I had 2 healthy birth children and adopted 2 more. So my family is complete