Miscarriage rates 40% higher in black women

[ArabellaScott]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56889861

Shocking report.

'The Lancet analysis of data on 4.6 million pregnancies in seven countries suggests being black increases miscarriage risk by 43%.'

That is really shocking. I wonder why.

That’s shocking.

I recall Prof Quenby from mc boards on fertility sites, think she’s a well respected expert.

Shocking.

The positive thing about this article us it suggests a 3 step plan which will help. Thats really simple. There is something clear to ask policy makers for.

Please listen government

'Most of the research was carried out in Sweden, Finland and Denmark, some of the few countries that gather statistics, though data from the US, UK, Canada and Norway was also used.'

The article is pretty scant on information, and I can't find the report on the Lancet website.

Decent Lancet editorial for those who haven't seen it (should be open access for now) with links to the papers in the relevant series about miscarriage:

www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00954-5/fulltext

The specific 7 countries study is this one (and open access):

Miscarriage matters: the epidemiological, physical, psychological, and economic costs of early pregnancy loss

www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00682-6/fulltext

Ah, fab, thanks Embarrassing! I went to the website and got a bit bamboozled with all the diff journals etc

@ArabellaScott

Ah, fab, thanks Embarrassing! I went to the website and got a bit bamboozled with all the diff journals etc

It's an ongoing irritation that news reports don't give a link to the study for those who'd be interested in taking a look.

It's even more irritating when it's a matter of wide-ranging interest and nuance.

It seems to suggest that is might be related to uncontrolled diabetes or heart disease both of which increase risk of miscarriage. Personally I think there should be a lot more testing of diabetes in this country, we know there are thousands of people with it undiagnosed and it can cause terrible problems. Surely if someone has a miscarriage it would just make sense for them to be tested.

I wonder why we don’t do more diabetes testing during early pregnancy.

I was tested for gestational diabetes in both pregnancies.

I saw this on BBC news today and it really grabbed my attention. A 43% increased risk is huge. Thanks for the links to the Lancet.

That's a big number, but I am not sure it's very useful unless it can be broken down more. The information about obesity etc for one thing, it also needs to be correlated to things like poverty, families made up of first generation immigrants, smoking/alcohol use, and disorders that affect people of African origin more often.

I imagine some of them would turn out not to correlate at all, but as is, this really tells us very little, and it's useless in terms of anything actionable.

This article talks about this kind of study and why it's really a problematic approach at a larger level (there is a button to see the PDF):

socialistregister.com/index.php/srv/article/view/15650

@LibertyMole

I wonder why we don’t do more diabetes testing during early pregnancy.

I was tested for gestational diabetes in both pregnancies.

It' more common in North America to test for GD.

But the reasons some places do it less often is in part because what you are supposed to do about it is pretty much what you are supposed to do anyway, which is eat more carefully, and there are some differences in approach to neonatal care that make it less relevant too I think. Though I think it's controversial.

I saw this today. Shocking

This should not be happening.40% higher is a shocking statistic.

That's a dreadful number. I hope that more can be done to address this.

I can't believe that figure but given that men are the default and medication, research is all male centric, perhaps the issues with black women and pregnancy would be dealt with better in a system that works for women. Appalling figure

This is absolutely horrific. What an emotional and physical toll on women that number signifies.

Completely awful as are the rates of deaths of women from BAME communities in childbirth.
We know this so why is there so little action by the NHS?

@persistentwoman

Completely awful as are the rates of deaths of women from BAME communities in childbirth. We know this so why is there so little action by the NHS?

I think the problem there is, what action would change things?

Without understanding the reasons for this dreadful statistic, you. Ant tackle the inequality.

@Clymene

Without understanding the reasons for this dreadful statistic, you. Ant tackle the inequality.

This is it, right? It might be due to inequality, but we don't even know what facet of inequality it is. If it's related to poverty we might wonder then why other poor people don't have a similar statistic (and maybe they do, unless we can see it broken down more we can't be sure.) If that is the case the best thing would be to concentrate on poverty related factors for all.

But it could also be related to other health or cultural factors. Which would have different solutions. Or maybe some is even things like differences at the genetic level (I don't think that is going to account for 40% mind you but it could be a factor, there can be genetic differences that make a difference in these kinds of health differences.)

There isn't much to do unless there is more information.

I think black women are more reluctant to access healthcare more than white women. A combination of factors including not being listened to; just recently there were reports r.e. Black women having higher mortality rates in pregnancy too.

Re maternal mortality, there is some discussion about the most recent MBRACE report in relation to race and ethnicity here:

www.aims.org.uk/pdfs/journal/804

In the UK there is virtually no healthcare to access in early pregnancy!

The recommendations in the report are mainly about investigations etc and look familiar, eg they’re investigations available from a small number of recurrent miscarriage clinics.