12 week scan -what are the odds of bad news?

[Strawberrythief87]

Hey,
I've got my 12 week scan coming up this week and am feeling quite stressed about it.
I've heard so much about people finding out about missed miscarriages, non viable pregnancies etc at this scan and I'm starting feel like its a high chance of happening. Now I understand that people talk about things more when it's the unusual story and that on forums like this it's really important for people to talk about their experiences like loss but wondering if this is skewing my idea of what happens.
So I'm wondering what the actual chance of getting bad news is? Has anyone seen figures on this and where are they from?
I work with statistics so understand they won't be perfect indications of individual risk but I think seeing the numbers would calm me down.

About one in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage, but the vast majority of these are before 6 weeks. So if you've made it to 12 weeks with no issues, the actual likelihood is quite a bit lower. Most pregnancies are viable and go on to be perfectly healthy, so I would try not to stress yourself out. I did have a missed mc that happened at 5 weeks, but at 11 weeks, I was still doing fine and no obvious signs of mc other than a few instances of a small amount of bleeding (like one wipe and then gone). But for what it's worth, I've bled much more heavily than that in my two healthy pregnancies (my first I had gushing bleeding at 10 weeks, obviously all fine, she's turning 5 this week, and my current pregnancy I bled for 2 weeks between 7-9 weeks, again all fine, healthy baby, he's due any day). I found out about the missed mc because I had a private scan at 8 weeks, though I imagine I would have had a scan because of the small amount of bleeding anyway, so would have known before 12 weeks. Either way, the point is it's very unlikely you'd make it to 12 weeks without a sign something was off, either a very early mc at 5/6 weeks when most of them occur, or some unusual bleeding that you would have had checked out. So I would try to stay as positive as you can be and not think about a million what ifs.

Thanks for the replies.
I've had nothing worrying so far so thats in our favour, it's just the unknown really. It's just we've had close family members who have had repeated missed miscarriages at a later stage. Despite there being no increased risk for our pregnancy it all just brings it home a little bit more really.
I've seen lots of the stats around miscarriage as a whole, but as many of the miscarriages found at the scan are from earlier I've not been able to find any reliable statistics for finding anything at the scan and even lots of the miscarriage stats from the states don't really apply for us in the uk as they have health care systems that routinely find the fetal heartbeat in early pregnancy and so flag up any problems earlier

I feel exactly the same way! My 12 week scan is this Friday and I'm so worried about a mmc despite having no issues so far at all. I think it's normal to worry, especially as on these forums it can make it sound more common that it really it. Hope your svan goes well I'll be thinking of you. Do update us x

The chances of an asymptomatic MMC being found at a 12 week scan is about 1%, chances of a serious abnormality picked up are somewhat lower than that.

Basically if you've got to 12 weeks the odds are overwhelmingly that everything's fine. That's not a guarantee, and a 1% MMC rate is still quite a lot of women, but the odds are very much in your favour.

I was like you, convinced they wouldn’t find a heartbeat, or something would be seriously wrong, or there would be nothing there and they’d tell me I was mad and to go home. And like you I’d had no signs of any problems, or any reason to think anything was wrong - I was just so anxious.

The scan went well, baby has a strong heartbeat and is measuring perfectly, and knowing that has calmed me down so much. It is strongly likely that your scan will go well too, and I hope that you’ll be able to relax more afterwards, like me.

I’d also really advise telling your midwife how worried you feel. Mine was able to draw on experience and examples to help me put my worries in perspective, which I found a lot more useful than looking st statistics and percentages online.

Thanks everyone. We had the scan today and all went well, no concerns at all. Just such a relief to see the baby there and hear a heart beat! It just builds up so much to this date. I said about it to the Dr who said that now I need to just enjoy the pregnancy and really not worry about anything

Iv never had any issues at my 12 week scan, only the 20week scan where they check for major abnormalitys