Body Mass Index Linked to Miscarriage Risk

Highlights:

• Link between women's lifestyle and risk of recurrent pregnancy loss (miscarriage) assessed
• Being underweight or overweight increases the risk of two consecutive pregnancy losses
• Miscarriage is the most common complication of early pregnancy

Women who are overweight or underweight are at a higher risk of experiencing recurrent miscarriages, found a new study conducted by University of Southampton researchers. The systematic review and meta-analysis study has been published in the journal Scientific Reports. Miscarriage affects 15 - 20% of all pregnancies. Recurrent pregnancy loss is a complex disease and although often attributed to numerous medical factors and lifestyle influences, the cause is deemed "unexplained" in around 50% of cases.

The results of this latest study found that there are higher occurrences of successive miscarriages in mothers who are underweight (having a Body Mass Index score of less than 18.5), overweight (having BMI between 25 and 30) and obese (having BMI above 30).

The study's first author, Dr Bonnie Ng, MRC Fellow in Clinical and Experimental Sciences at the University of Southampton said, "For those with BMI greater than 25 and 30, their risk of suffering a further miscarriage increases by 20% and 70% respectively.'

The research team also set out to assess the impact of factors such as smoking and consumption of alcohol and caffeine. However they were unable to establish conclusively whether these have any impact or not due to inconsistencies of the results from a small number of studies and heterogeneity in women taking part in them.

Co-author Dr George Cherian, Specialist trainee in Obstetrics and Gynaecology, at Princess Anne Hospital, Southampton said, 'while our study did not find any associations between recurrent pregnancy loss and lifestyle parameters such as smoking, alcohol and caffeine intake, further large-scale studies are required to clarify this.'

Whilst recognising that more observational and clinical research is needed to establish the full extent of lifestyle choices, the authors conclude that weight is a risk factor that can be modified to reduce the risk.

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Source-Eurekalert