Did my weight cause my miscarriage?

[EmiJomobean]

Hi All,

Not doing so good.

I know it’s early days, I only confirmed miscarriage yesterday.

This was my first pregnancy, and we want to start trying soon. My biggest fear now, is that this will continue to happen again and again. I have PCOS, and a very high (40+) BMI. I’m left wondering if this is what caused my baby to be unable to stay snug in my body for 9 months. They say being overweight increases the risk so how can it not be my fault.

if I lose weight will my next pregnancy have a happy ending?

I hate myself right now.

I'm so so sorry OP, you must be devastated. I don't know if it would be helpful now to hear of positive stories of pregnancies at this BMI, but it can be possible. I waited years trying and failing to get to the best weight to conceive and ended up carrying a healthy pregnancy at my heaviest. Please be kind to yourself.

I had a bmi of 23 and had 6 miscarriages. Lots of things cause miscarriages and being under or over weight is right down the bottom of the list. I’m sorry this happened.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. It wasn't your fault OP. I had two losses so I know how horrible it is. Sometimes there's no rational explanation for it. Sending you best wishes for your recovery, you are not to blame ❤️

My understanding from a midwife who was very kind to me after a loss is, miscarriages that happen early mean there was a problem at conception. That the pregnancy hadn't everything it needed for your baby to thrive.

In a strange way this was very reassuring. It took my feeling of my body failing.

I am sorry for your loss, and while this may be no comfort evey woman asks similar questions be it about a coffee, a thought or an activity they did.

Science hasn't worked it out, if it was as straightforward as being X,y or z then life would be a little easier.

So many things can cause a miscarriage, and nearly all of them are beyond our control.

We all do our best to avoid them, avoiding certain foods, not drinking etc, but in the end, nature does what she wants.

Sending you love

@EmiJomobean oh my lovely I couldn’t read this and not answer. Firstly do not allow yourself any blame in your miscarriage, yes there is evidence that says there is an increased risk, but there are loads of other factors and lots of people with no risk factors that also sadly miscarry. When I had my first mc I did not have a high BMi ( had one child already) I then had my second child with a BMI of 33 and now have a BMI of 34 and am currently miscarrying.

in this situation we look for answers and reasons why, but sometimes there just aren’t those reasons, and you need to be kind to yourself, be gentle and allow your body to heal, and allow yourself the space emotionally to process this loss, while acknowledging this was not your fault.

sending you lots of healing thoughts and love xxxx

Please don't blamed yourself.

My cousin had a healthy baby with no complications at almost 200 lb.

I had a high BMI, had a MC, lost a lot of weight and then had another MC. Same issue, at overweight and normal weight.

Yes, try to eat healthy but try to get answers from doctors to know what happened, they can run some tests.

I’ve thought this myself. It took us 18 months to conceive and then at our 12 week scan we found out our baby was very poorly and we had to terminate two weeks later. My BMI is 34 and I can’t help but think it was partly my fault. I know an increased bmi does contribute to an increased risk of a chromosome problem, but I have no idea why. No one at hospital was unkind enough to suggest it was my fault, just bad luck. Who really knows? Hoping we get another chance.

Please do not blame yourself
.its not your fault

My bmi is 30 / 31 ish

I had an early miscarriage last year..

Its very hard.

When your ready / in the future / next time - you might want to consider some of / any of or none of the below -

Vit d - helps reduce miscarriage risk - you could take 2000 iu a day

B6 helps reduce miscarriage risk by up to 50 percent for some.

Some ladies dont concieve / have a pregnancy full term until good iron - tis good to ask your gp to check your feretin - vit d - b12 and prolactin

fully agree with @worldwidetravel2017 even slight deficiencies can play a big part, I’ve also heard that if you’re BMi is higher you may need an extra dose of folic acid, I’m taking extra vit d , b12 and folate now in preparation for try again when my body is healed x

Yes - always good to get a prescription of 5mg folic acid if your bmi is 30 or more

I have that ^

The nhs and tommys baby charity recommend it

Sorry to hear of your losses

Sorry for your loss.
Miscarriages happen for lots of reasons, many unknown and most through no fault of the mother, so don't blame yourself, it's just one of those horrible things.
Losing weight certainly won't hurt if that's what you want to do (responsible diet and exercise... don't starve yourself) but there are no guarantees. Concentrate on your health and happiness and the rest will follow.

Also - op @EmiJomobean - have your estrogen and progesterone been checked ?

Sometimes for some females - a higher bmi equates to higher estrogen or even estrogen dominance - that can equate to low progesterone

No love, it didn't. Miscarriage can happen for all kinds of reasons and blaming yourself won't help. I'm so sorry you're going through this. Lose weight if you want but do it from a place of kindness towards yourself, not self-hatred.

The short answer is yes, obesity puts you at higher risk of miscarriage. But at the end of the day you have to think of your health in general , if you want children you want to be around for your child til well into adulthood don’t you? Losing weight will help you in many areas of your life, including being able to have kids.

No one can say whether it did or it didn't, but being significantly overweight makes miscarriage more likely and also increases the risks of complications for you and baby during pregnancy. Not to mention the ongoing issues for your health and the fact that overweight parents tend to have overweight children and so the cycle repeats itself.
There may well be other factors at play which are unrelated to your weight, but I think it would be sensible to reduce your BMI to as normal a level as you can for your health as much as your chance to have a health pregnancy.

It is so easy to blame yourself and partners just do not get it. I've had 6 miscarriages in 2 years and I am on the verge of giving up. My BMI is 20. So it's not all about weight. But I would recommend doing everything you can to reduce your risk factors which includes losing weight and then you can say you did your best

So sorry to hear of your losses - i really hope u get your happy ending soon

Have you had progesterone / estrogen checked ?

I've had loads of tests, currently waiting for results of deft. We have given ourselves 6 months and then will give up.
Progesterone was low, but taking progesterone didn't make any difference so I think it's a sign that something else is wrong and not the actual issue if you get me?

Yeah i get you.
And know how hard it is.

Thing is with progsterone being low - you likely have high estrogen
And likely need to get out of estrogen dominance..

Are you on high vit d daily ? 2000 iu ? _ helps reduce estrogen - estrogen is high when progesterone is low often

20mg of zinc daily is also a good bet to help

No my oestrogen was normal, no one knows what is going on hence paying to get the deft. The service here in Wales is not great so we've done most of the tests privately.
I'm on multi vitamins including zinc. Otherwise completely fit and healthy.

Theres a vit d and miscarriage link

( Tommys baby charity know about it l

Would be good to take higher vit d - not much in a multi vit

Haveu read the book - it starts with an egg ?

Sorry to hear. What I found was how unaware I was that many people experience miscarriages.
when we went to IVF, we could not get funding if BMI was above 35, in part due to the fact obesity means less likely to give birth to a child. Thankfully my BMI was lower, but I did lose weight whilst waiting for our one cycle of nhs funding to get it as close to 25 as possible to increase chances.

losing weight is always a benefit to health of a high bmi.

I had 3 miscarriages. The first one I’d had surgery on my eye before I knew I was pregnant, in what would have been the 2ww, medicines weren’t suitable for pregnancy. That was given as a possible reason.

The second one I ate oysters and got mild food poisoning (before I knew I was pregnant, in the 2ww).

The third one I started to suspect there was an underlying issue but was told it was most likely down to my weight (BMI over 35) and age (37+)affecting egg quality.

Turned out to be none of these things. I had an undiagnosed clotting disorder (antiphospholipid syndrome) and without treatment had less than a 1 in 5 chance of a successful pregnancy. I am still so so mad that I was allowed to blame myself when I could have been 23, eaten all the bloody oysters in the world and weighed 8 stone, and would still have had these miscarriages as I would still have had crap blood that clots too easily. I had 2 successful pregnancies once diagnosed and treated with medication in pregnancy.

At the recurrent miscarriage clinic the first thing they told me was ‘It’s not your fault. There is always a medical reason for miscarriage, even if we can’t find a cause right now’. Miscarriages don’t ’just happen’. It’s not ‘bad luck’ (although it is bloody unfair and I’m so sorry this has happened to you).

You might never know the reason for your miscarriage. If mine happened 40 years ago I wouldn’t have either, because my condition wasn’t even identified really then. Half, maybe as many as two thirds, of pregnancy losses are due to chromosome issues. The rest are made up of placenta issues, blood clots, infections, underlying conditions like diabetes, various medications. Yes being over weight or over 35 may put us at risk of miscarriage but there are other factors to consider and a lot of the time it’s simply that they don’t know all the causes of miscarriage. It’s very very unlikely to be due to you being overweight. It’s not your fault.

Feel the need to clarify (after reading some less sensitive comments), that my pregnancy wasn’t planned. Not that it should make me feel any less valid if it was planned. I had wanted to lose weight this year and try once I had gotten lower.

Now that mentally I’m feeling better, I do just want to say that when I wrote this post, I was not coping well. One of these comments if I’d read a few days earlier, could’ve had a huge impact on my emotional recovery.

Everyone has a story that nobody can see. Unless you have walked in someone else’s shoes, you simply can’t make judgments.

If I am lucky enough to be a mum one day, I hope they’ll know compassion. Thank you for the majority of these kind comments. Some of the kindness I’ve received will stay in my heart forever.