Is the Gestational Week of Spontaneous Abortion Repeated in the Following Pregnancies in the Recurrent Abortion?

Kang, I S; Song, J H; Yoo, K J; Noh, G W; Baik, E C; Jun, J Y

Abstract

During the second or third trimester of pregnancy, a consensus exists that intrauterine fetal death may develop repeatedly around the gestational period of previous fetal death. The purpose of the study was to determine whether or not the gestational week at which the pregnancy was terminated spontaneously is repeated similarly in the following pregnancies during first trimester of pregnancy. A retrospective analysis of 123 abortions in 49 patients with a history of two or more consecutive spontaneous abortion during 1996-1997 was performed. The mean age was 29.1 year old and mean number of abortion was 2.5 times. In these patients, most (90.2%) of the abortions occurred between 6-13 weeks. The gestational weeks when the abortion occurred was repeated within two weeks compared to the first abortion in 77.5% (38/49) of the patients. Gestational week of the second pregnancy loss was correlated with that of the first pregnancy loss (r=0.66, p<0.001, linear regression analysis). These data suggest that there seems to be an individually different critical period during which the pregnancy is lost repeatedly. It is speculated that unknown fetal/placental antigen (s) expressed during the organogenesis may be involved in the immunologic rejection of the fetus.