Early Miscarriage vs Chemical Pregnancy: 3 Things to Know

There are multiple types of Early Miscarriage. It is important to learn which type you are having for optimal treatment.



A chemical pregnancy (also known as biochemical pregnancy) is a pregnancy that has been confirmed by a blood or urinary pregnancy test.



A biochemical pregnancy loss is a type of early miscarriage that is lost before it reaches the point there it can be seen on ultrasound.



Biochemical pregnancy losses appear to be much different than clinical pregnancy losses.



A clinical pregnancy losses is a type of early miscarriage that occurs after being verified with ultrasound. You should know the difference as it has important implications for your treatment.



It is well known that clinical pregnancy losses are most commonly due to chromosome abnormalities. Testing embryos for chromosome abnormalities during IVF will reduce the number of clinical miscarriages. The older a woman gets, the bigger the decrease in clinical miscarriage will occur with PGS.

However, a number of studies have found that the use of PGS does not reduce the risk for biochemical pregnancies in IVF. Stated another way, most biochemical pregnancy losses are not due to chromosome abnormalities



Chemical pregnancies are not just a result of fertility treatment



Many women become aware they have had a chemical pregnancy because fertility doctors closely monitor them for the occurrence of a pregnancy. Sensitive blood tests can detect a biochemical pregnancy even before a woman misses her period. Women who are not involved with fertility treatments miss these very early pregnancy losses or attribute them to something else - like stress causing her period to be late.



In 2015, doctors from Canada compared the rate of biochemical pregnancy loss in women doing IVF to women who conceived on their own without fertility treatment. They found that the biochemical pregnancy loss rate was actually a little lower in the IVF patients. This shows us that biochemical pregnancies are not just the result of fertility treatments.



Doctors don't understand recurrent biochemical pregnancy losses



The vast majority of the studies that have been done on couples with miscarriage or recurrent miscarriage have specifically excluded couples with biochemical losses. So all of the recommendations for testing and treatment that you see about the antibodies and other problems - do not apply to recurrent biochemical losses. The bottom line is that doctors do not understand recurrent biochemical losses at all and therefore doing the same thing we do for recurrent clinical losses is not warranted at this time.



Infertility TV is your weekly source for the best medical information if you have infertility, recurrent miscarriage or are just trying to conceive. (TTC). InfertilityTV covers infertility testing, fertility treatments such as Clomid, Follistim and Crinone and fertility treatments like IUI and IVF (in vitro fertilization)



One of the most popular playlists on InfertilityTV are the TTC tips which are great even you are not struggling with infertility



Dr Morris is a practicing IVF and infertility expert who sees patients at IVF! located in the Naperville Fertility Center.



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