WHAT IS RECURRENT MISCARRIAGE?

Recurrent miscarriage, also knowns as recurrent pregnancy loss, is when a woman has three or more consecutive, spontaneous miscarriages. Infertility after miscarriage is a devastating condition that affects 1-2% of women.

The cause of recurrent miscarriage is complex in nature and can vary from autoimmune disorders to uterine abnormalities. Frustrating to both patients and physicians, nearly half of couples with recurrent miscarriages have no identifiable cause.

FERTILITY TREATMENT FOR RECURRENT MISCARRIAGE

Until recently, there was thought to be no effective clinical treatment for unexplained recurrent miscarriage. However, CCRM researchers have found that a technique that examines all 23 pairs of chromosomes in a human blastocyst (day five embryo), known as comprehensive chromosome screening (CCS), also known as preimplantation genetic testing for aneuploidy, is an effective clinical treatment for unexplained recurrent miscarriages.

It is well known that aneuploid embryos (chromosomally abnormal) will typically result in spontaneous miscarriage. CCRM clinicians recently conducted a study employing CCS and cryopreservation techniques, which allows us to select and transfer only blastocysts that have 23 pairs of chromosomes in a frozen embryo transfer. Out of 33 patients who had at least one chromosomally normal embryo transferred, 87.9% had clinical pregnancy; only one pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage.

This exciting discovery will open doors for many couples wanting to have children who previously had nowhere to turn.