The stages include: very early miscarriage, missed miscarriage, threatening miscarriage, inevitable miscarriage, incomplete miscarriage, and complete miscarriage.
very early miscarriage
very early miscarriage is a pregnancy that ends soon after implantation, sometimes only a few days later, and before it would be visible on an ultrasound. You may not even have been aware that you were pregnant. This is also medically referred to as a ‘Chemical Pregnancy’ and is one detectable only by a biochemical blood test for hCG levels which shows evidence that conception had taken place. So it was not a false pregnancy test if a home pregnancy kit had shown faintly positive. Unfortunately, you have experienced an early miscarriage.
missed miscarriage
Missed miscarriage (also called 'missed abortion') is usually early in the pregnancy as well and you may have no warning symptoms and discover through a routine scan that your baby has no heartbeat, the result of a non-viable fetus. If there is an empty fetal sac (called a 'blighted ovum') the egg was fertilized and attached itself to the uterine wall but unfortunately, even though it might have kept growing for a few weeks, no embryo ever developed.
threatening miscarriage
Threatening miscarriage may be experienced for days or even weeks before you lose the baby. At this stage you could experience any of the following:
Light bleeding.
Pain similar to period pain.
Cramps
The nausea and tender breasts associated with pregnancy may disappear.
A sense of no longer 'feeling' pregnant.
About 40% of bleeding episodes occur during early pregnancy, usually at 5 to 7 weeks, and is spotting (normally dark blood) at about the time your period would have been due. Sometimes a small amount of blood is lost when the placenta matures at about 7 weeks and takes over the progesterone production. This can be frightening but is quite common and in most cases your pregnancy will continue as normal without harming the baby at all. These situations only lead to a miscarriage in 20% of cases.
Sometimes, if the corpus luteum is not functioning properly and is therefore not making adequate amounts of progesterone, you will miscarry.
inevitable miscarriage
This is occurring when the cervix opens and the placenta breaks free from the uterine wall.
You will experience some or all of the following symptoms which need to be reported to your doctor
The most common signs are:
Sudden absence of 'morning sickness' and breast tenderness
Intuitively no longer feel pregnant.
Faintness and nausea and general feeling of being unwell.
Pain is like bad period pain or birth contractions.
Persistent heavy bleeding filling more than 1 sanitary pad in half an hour.
Passing pieces of placenta which look like blood clots or liver.
An unusual odor from the lost blood
You may see the fetus.
If your miscarriage is due to an incompetent cervix, (from 16 weeks on) everything will happen very quickly and your baby may be born alive. (This can later be treated by a cervical stitch to save future pregnancies)
incomplete miscarriage
When some placenta remains inside the uterus you will probably experience fever and chills, pain or there is an odor. Check with your medical professional as you may have an infection which requires hospital treatment. Each hospital have there own policy which could be; wait and see monitoring, offer/require a scan, tablets to induce a normal delivery, sometimes suction is used along with scraping (this procedure can be uncomfortable, so pain medication or anesthetic medications are often used), or a dilation and curettage operation requiring a general anesthetic and you may need to be hospitalized for a few hours or possibly stay overnight . Afterwards you could be given antibiotics and/or medication to minimize bleeding. If not treated, an incomplete miscarriage can make you very ill and may also have an effect on future pregnancies. The primary goal of treatment during and after a miscarriage is to prevent hemorrhaging and infection. Incomplete miscarriage occurs most commonly between 6 and 12 weeks of pregnancy.
complete miscarriage
The earlier you are in the pregnancy, the more likely that your body will complete the miscarriage on its own.
Once the uterus is empty the cervix closes, the pain stops and the bleeding slows down and should stop by seven days.
Answered by
cynMom
at
Aug 5, 2010 12:47 PM
