Please come and talk to me if you've had five miscarriages in a row....

[Concordia]

My friend is in this situation and I want to help her. She has a child but since then has had five miscarriages. She wonders if she can keep going through any more of them, but on the other hand, really wants a child. She's in her mid thirties but i won't give any more information to keep her anonymous. I want to support her and i can try to be there for her but that's about all I can do really. She doesn't know anyone else in this situation and neither do I. If you had a baby on no 6 please cheer us up!

Hi Concordia,
So sorry to hear your friend has been through this. I had 4 mmc and a suspected ectopic/ovarian cyst leading to mc after 6 years of trying (2 yrs fertility treatments). Was told time and again that it was 'just bad luck'.
The NHS generally won't do any chromosome or blood clotting analysis until 3 m/c. They did this for me and dh but found nothing. We went on to have another 2 mc and then decided to go private.

We went to Dr Amin Gorgy's clinic in Wimpole Street, London here and had the 'Chicago tests', which showed I had immune issues that were preventing implantation and the development of the pregnancies. I did a cycle of immune treatments with the London Clinic alongside my NHS ovulation induction treatment (I had a LOVELY NHS consultant who agreed to this, not all would..), and I am now 30 weeks along with twins. Feels like a miracle after 6 years of waiting.

Lots of ladies seem to have had success with just baby aspirin, one a day, so if I were you, I'd try a few cycles of this first. We got furthest (before the immune treatments) - 9 weeks, using baby aspirin alone - for lots of ladies, it is all they need.
If you are into the science of it all, Dr Alan Beer's book 'Is your body baby friendly' explains it all. There is a bit in there about how the immune response can kick in after a first or even second successful pg.

Hope this is of some help, and please wish your friend good luck with it. I'm around of you have any more questions!!

I know of a couple who had five miscarriages and then five healthy babies; it does happen I don't think that involved any drugs, but as zippysmum says, I have heard countless success stories just on low dose aspirin (75mg).

Just wanted to say you seem like a lovely friend wanting to know how best to support her. All I can say is just listen - that is the most important thing a friend can do after mc.

Really hope things work out for your friend.

wow, thanks zippy's mum and cup cake fairy and congratulations zippy's mum, i bet it was hard to keep going but its been worth it! good luck with the twins.

Hi there I had four mc before having my DS and also two positive pregnancy tests which faded to negative over the next few days which I regard as very early pregnancy loss.

It was a sad and harrowing time and I was convinced there was something dreadfully wrong and that I wouldn't be able to carry a baby to term. I became obsessed with trying to find out what was wrong and scared myself silly reading on the internet about quite obscure things that could cause mltiple miscarriages

I had a whole series of tests and prodding and poking which showed nothing wrong. I found the doctor who delivered these results totally unsympathetic and unhelpful.

Eventually I saw a second consultant who was wonderful. He was much more understanding and said (sorry if this is hard to hear I know it was tough for me) that most micarriages occur because the embryo / foetus has a problem in its formation that sadly means it cannot grow and mature properly. The only 'medical' thing he did was test me for polycystic ovarian sydrome. I apparently had a mild case so he prescribed me with metformin as he said women with PCOS tend to be more prone to miscarrage and that metformin was thought to reduce the risk slightly (not a miracle cure just a small reduction in risk).

Four months later I was pregnant with DS. I feel for your friend- multiple miscarriage is such a sad and painful thing. Im my opinion though it is not uncommon and there is every possibility in the world that she will go on to have a healthy pregnancy.

PS I don't mean to sound as though a healthy pregnancy erases the loss of a miscarriage. Nothing can replace what was lost. However, for me it is so much more bearable now that I have DS who I treasure so much.

I had five mc, then dd was born after metformin (PCOS),another two mc, now pg again after metformin. What annoyed me was that for this pg I had to get a private prescription for metformin because the GP would not prescribe it for what they called 'fertility traeatment', when all it appears to do is to regulate hormones a bit to increase the quality of the eggs!
Hope your friend does not give up and makes some noises about being tested for various things, eg. PCOS, blood clotting issues etc. Best of luck!

I had 4 miscarriages afer a healthy pregnancy and finally gave birth to DC2 after being diagnosed with low progesterone. I started taking cyclogest at 12 dpo and my 2nd child was born at 41 weeks. I had a m/c earlier this year, again due to low progesterone after an unplanned pregnancy and decided to go for DC3. I got a positive at 12dpo and started cyclogest again, I am now 8weeks. All my m/c's happened before 6 weeks so I have no doubt that this is what I need to prevent m/c. She should certainly see she can find someone who will prescribe this for her, unfortunately it's almost impossible to get on the NHS due to Lesley Reagan believing that it doesn't work but I dispute that wholeheartedly.