Miscarriage while breastfeeding

[Skylark1990]

I've just had my third miscarriage while breastfeeding DD. She's 22 mo and after the second miscarriage (in April) I night weaned and dropped day feeds significantly to 2-3 in the day.

I got pregnant quickly again and thought all was going well but devastatingly after having covid for a week I started bleeding and miscarried the next day at 6.5 weeks 💔😞

I'm in the process of being referred to a recurrent miscarriage clinic but just wondered if others have experienced similar while bf? I wanted to feed DD till 2 and my DP wants a break from TTC now so we may just press pause and once she's 2 in September I'll consider weaning and TTC again. It makes me sad tho, I was hoping to be able to feed her while pregnant for a little while.

There seems to be so much conflicting advice. Officially it seems breastfeeding "doesn't cause miscarriage" but I've read about others having similar, and some info about how it can lower progesterone.

I guess I'm just wondering if anyone has been through similar or has any advice or info? Tia x

No personal experience but I have dug into the evidence base on this one, as I would like to start TTC before I am planning on weaning my daughter. There is some concern about breastfeeding in pregnancy as breastfeeding stimulates oxytocin release which in theory can cause uterine contractility, and it can also suppress progesterone which is needed for maintenance of a pregnancy. Breastfeeding can also be nutritionally taxing on your body which in theory could affect a pregnancy. That is all however theoretical, and there are quite large studies looking at populations of breastfeeding pregnant women vs non breastfeeding pregnant women and the evidence shows that exclusive breastfeeding (as in baby consuming nothing but your breast milk, typically during the first 6 months) does significantly increase miscarriage risk, but partial breastfeeding (in a baby who is consuming other foods) is not associated with any increased risk of miscarriage at all.

I'm sorry for what you've been through. According to the available evidence the probability is that your miscarriages are unrelated to your breastfeeding, but I think in your position I would hold off on TTC until I had weaned just to remove any doubt.

I’m so sorry for your loss. As mentioned above the increased risk of miscarriage whilst breastfeeding only holds true for the first six months of feeding. After that there is no evidence to suggest you shouldn’t carry on.
The decrease in progesterone would generally manifest in very short cycles which effectively stop you conceiving in the first place.
In terms of oxytocin, there are a very few situations where you might be advised not to breastfeed in later pregnancy if you are thought to be at high risk of preterm delivery- in these cases you would be advised for full pelvic rest (ie no sex). If they haven’t advised that then carry on!
Wishing you all the best in the future and congratulations for doing so well bf your little one 💕

I'm not sure about medical facts etc but in my experience I had three previous miscarriages- these all happened while I was breastfeeding DC1 and DC2. I am convinced that it had something to do with it... I have had 3 normal pregnancies with no issues when I wasn't breastfeeding.

I am convinced breastfeeding made me miscarry. I've just weaned at 18m and am now in the TWW..... fingers crossed. I too wanted to feed while pregnant and maybe even tandem feed but now I've weaned it's actually nice to have my body back to myself tbh.

Thank you all so much for your replies @pbdr @peepshow97 @ButterflyGal @limoncelloo really interesting to hear your experiences and I'm very sorry to those who have had losses too.

I think that it must depend on the person because so many people can feed through pregnancy, but I've also heard of many women miscarrying whilst breastfeeding and due to the hormonal fluctuations it could play a part... I also think that night feeding might have an impact. The first two losses were before 5 weeks and I was feeding my DD every 2 hours through the night so essentially very similar to a baby under 6 months 😅but when I night weaned the pregnancy got to 6.5, but perhaps I miscarried for a different reason that time, or perhaps the fact I'm still feeding her did still play a part.

It's hard because the evidence is patchy - some say it's fine, other's say it could play a part. I guess we just need to do what feels right. I've been given progesterone to take in a subsequent pregnancy so hopefully that helps, if I do keep feeding my DD when I'm next pregnant.

So sorry for your losses OP. It's a hard one as I know quite afew mums who tandem feed (i think it's called) so must have bf when pregnant. I was still bf my first a couple of times a day when I got pregnant with my second. Had no issues but my first did wean herself when I was about 14 weeks I suspected the pregnancy caused my milk to dry up.

I’m so sorry for your losses, statistically after 6 months it doesn’t increase the risk - though you mention for the first two you were feeding very very regularly so I think it’s probably impossible to say if it had any affect there. For the third loss - we know that Covid infection can really significantly increase the risk so I think it’s likely you were just really really unfortunate there as it sounds like the breastfeeding was a lot less frequent and less likely to contribute, especially as you were further along.

Thank you @user34632 and @PinkDaffodil2 and yes I too know of many people who fed all through pregnancy and tandem etc which is amazing, I had definitely thought about doing that myself, I'm a big advocate of Breastfeeding so it pains me to even think it could be contributing to my miscarriages.

I think everyone must just be a bit different, we all respond to hormones in diff ways. In saying that I agree @PinkDaffodil2 when I was feeding DD through the night and on demand all day and had the two super early losses it felt like it was probably more connected to bf, however this most recent loss after covid was different as it was further along and I'd not been feeding her nearly as much 🤷‍♀️ perhaps I was just very unlikely and covid really badly affected me.
I'm having tests done next week so that should help identify if something else is going on too. X

@peepshow97 good luck for the two week wait! So sorry to hear of your loss. Did you decide to wean DC once you had had the loss?

@limoncelloo so sorry to hear you've also had multiple losses. If you don't mind saying, were they all early on? Did you decide to wean to fall pregnant or did you decide to wait a bit to continue feeding and then try again after that? That's what I'm wondering now. Whether to just feed DD for a few more months then wean her and try again or actively try to wean her soon, to be able to try again for more peace of mind. She's not really ready to wean tho!

It is worth bearing in mind that the miscarriage chance in general is about 1 in 5 and is likely to increase slightly for a second or subsequent pregnancy as the risk increases as we get older. That means that 1 in 5 people will also have miscarriages while breastfeeding, it could be easy to think well, it must have been the breastfeeding at fault when it might have happened anyway.

I am not wishing to dismiss anyone's experience. I don't know (and probably even a doctor could not know) what caused anyone's miscarriage. Just offering a different perspective in case it is useful OP.

Hi @Skylark1990. This was quite a few years ago, from memory they were all around 7 weeks.
Between DC1 and DC2 I had the first two miscarriages.... after the first one I thought maybe bad luck but second I became convinced it was related to bf... I weaned and then had a successful second pregnancy straight away.
Between DC2 and DC3 I had another miscarriage, again while breastfeeding. Again I decided to wean straight away and feel pregnant with DC3 with no issues.
My children were all coming up to two when I weaned them though so I didn't do it "early" as such just to fall pregnant.
I know there isn't any medical evidence to suggest it increases the risk but for me in convinced it did something/did agree with me. From memory I'm also pretty certain with the first miscarriage that my progesterone was very low x

And I don't think doctors have all the answers, just like they don't really know what causes morning sickness.
All I can say is that all three of my miscarriages happened while breastfeeding which I find strange.
I'm now on pregnancy #4 and as there has been a 5 year gap I obviously wasn't in the same predicament with breastfeeding... so far with this pregnancy there are no issues, HCG levels high and progesterone bang on where it should be x

I had 2 early miscarriages and this is because my husband has a genetic translocation. In theory this causes 4 possible outcomes: genetically normal, healthy carrier, 2x not healthy - we think in our case based on experience TTC that the 2 unhealthy outcomes are an early miscarriage around 5-6 weeks and a failure to implant. Because we had such a strange pattern of pregnancies - sometimes falling pregnant very quickly, these early miscarriages, and then huge long gaps where we did not seem to conceive at all.

FWIW the early miscarriages that I had were before DS2. I wasn't breastfeeding at this time. When we conceived DS3 I was still breastfeeding DS2 and I did not have any miscarriages that I was aware of (but was also not really tracking ovulation/periods at that time).

I had three miscarriages whilst breastfeeding, two at 6 weeks and one at 11. By the time I got to see the recurrent miscarriage clinic I was pregnant again, they prescribed progesterone pessaries and I’m 24 weeks pregnant now! The consultant couldn’t find any reason for recurrent miscarriages in testing.

When I looked into it there was some data that suggested that there was an increased risk of miscarriage for people exclusively breastfeeding but needed more research.

@Skylark1990 yes it was one of many deciding factors for me. My son is getting older and I felt pressure from others to stop bf unfortunately. Also he didn't understand that I wasn't happy to feed on demand any more and was getting upset by this. I felt it was fairer to stop altogether. And I didn't want to miscarry again.

Currently 4dpo in my first cycle since stopping so everything crossed but I don't feel like this is our month!

Thank you all 💗 so useful to hear other experiences and insights and thoughts, it's really useful. Really sorry to hear of your losses @BertieBotts and @fyn

@fyn so happy for you that you are 24 weeks! Congratulations!

So I did a couple tests this morning as even tho we weren't planning to TTC again so soon we did DTD a bit and figured out it was near to ovulation. They came back positive! I'm about 11dpo and I started progesterone pessaries straight after I got the BFPs, I hope they work for me like they did you @fyn . I now need to decide what to do about bf - I didn't feed her for her nap today 😞 so many tears but I felt too anxious. She did fall asleep after a while tho with cuddles.

@limoncelloo and @peepshow97 and anyone else, how did you wean? I think I might feel ok with feeding once for bedtime but think I do need to cut back / slowly wean for my own sanity... Really hoping the progesterone supplements helps in meantime!

@Skylark1990 congrats!

I just did the before bed feed for a bit and then reduced this... so if that feed was normally 15 mins I reduced it to 10, then 7 then 5 and so on and so forth. Although my babies were older.

Hope everything goes well for you ❤️

Thank you! My DD is 22 mo,nearly 23 so must be similar to yours? You said they were approaching 2? I hope that approach works as sounds gentle!

@fyn I also wanted to ask, did you stop breastfeeding as well as tale the progesterone or did you carry on? X

Congratulations @Skylark1990, hopefully the progesterone works for you too! I stopped completely after my last miscarriage at about 15 months. It was admittedly quite easy to stop as I’d exclusively pumped so just swapped for cows milk. I got pregnant this time when my DD was about 20 months so there was a bit of a gap.

Hi @Skylark1990 just wanted to see how you are getting on?

I've had two losses at 5.5 weeks now whilst breastfeeding, but I stopped bf 6 weeks ago. Just about to ovulate again and have progesterone pessaries so hoping we will have more luck :-)

HI @blueberry23 ! I am doing well (I think!). I'm 8 weeks now, have a scan later this week to check on baby.... just hoping all is ok in there! I am still bf my DD but only once a day in the evening before bed. I have skipped a few evenings too every now and then if out and DH does bedtime. I have found my milk has massively dropped, and my nipples are v sore. I was thinking I'd stop over the bank holiday weekend and I've been saying to DD that there 'isnt much milk left' or 'milk nearly all gone' for a while now. But at bedtime yesterday when I tried not to feed her she got very upset so think I'll keep going with the one feed for a bit longer... she's nearly 2 so I'll be happy to stop soon, but it's definitely a big and emotional change for us both.

I am on progesterone pessaries and they seem to be helping... hopefully! Can update after my scan :) Hope you are well - best of luck for ttc! x

hi @Skylark1990 I have come across your post and in a similar situation. I had a straight forward pregnancy with my DD and breastfed her for a very long time. It was feeding throughout the night and once in the morning and a couple of times in the day when she was hungry or tired. A month before her 3rd birthday I miscarried at 6-8 weeks. I fell pregnant very fast within maybe 6 weeks and lost that one at 6 weeks too. We cannot put it down to anything other than the bf so it has made me miserable every time she latched on after that. So I had to abruptly wean with her have around 10 seconds on each side before I stop her. We may TTC soon and wanted to ask how you got on with the progesterone? As I was hoping I can have a straightforward pregnancy now that I am largely off the bf but if progesterone helps then I am willing to try anything to avoid another MC, it is too painful.

@Pineapplerocks sorry to hear of your losses it's really hard ❤️

I had a second DD in April this year, was a lovely home birth and she's 7 months now. I took the progesterone till I was 16+6. Really glad I did, I'm not sure if it's what made the pregnancy stick but I think it probably helped. I also stopped bf my first DD about 12 weeks into the pregnancy, but I had cut down a lot as soon as I got the bfp so was only feeding max once per day from there.

You will have another baby I am sure, it just takes time sometimes. Sending lots of luck to you ✨✨✨

@Skylark1990 congratulations to you that is beautiful news!! thank you so much for your kind words, feeling very reassured 💜