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UK Wedding News

03/07/2015

Women Four Times More At Risk Of Stillbirth Following A Previous Stillbirth

A new study has found that women who have experienced a stillbirth, are four times more likely to suffer a stillbirth in a subsequent pregnancy.

The research, which has been carried out by scientists at the University of Aberdeen and published in the British Medical Journal, found that these women are four times more likely to suffer from another stillbirth than women who had an initial live birth.

In 2013, the UK recorded 3,286 stillborn babies. Among European countries, it is ranked 33rd out of 35 for stillbirth rates.

Despite this, the team said that there has not been enough sufficient information provided to improve the prevention of stillbirth.

For the study, they looked at the link between stillbirth in an initial pregnancy and risk of stillbirth in a subsequent pregnancy. They studied 13 cohort and three case-control studies from high-income countries including Australia, Denmark, Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Scotland and the US.

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Data was collected for a total of 3,412,079 women. Of these, 3,387,538 (99.3%) women had a previous live birth and 24,541 (0.7%) women had a stillbirth in an initial pregnancy. A stillbirth was defined as fetal death at more than 20 weeks' gestation or a birth weight of at least 400g.

Furthermore, the research revealed that stillbirths occurred in the subsequent pregnancy for 14,283 women: 606 of 24,541 (2.5%) in women with a history of stillbirth and 13,677 of 3,387,538 (0.4%) in women with no history.

Twelve studies looked at the risk of stillbirth in second pregnancies; these found that women who had a stillbirth in an initial pregnancy had an almost five-fold higher risk of stillbirth in a second pregnancy – a higher risk than stillbirth linked with medical conditions such as diabetes or hypertension. The report added that when certain factors, such as maternal age and maternal smoking, were taken into account, the increased risk was up to four times higher. However, risks following an unexplained stillbirth may not increase, as the authors said there are not enough studies, and the evidence remains "inadequate".

They added that advice should be given to women on changing certain lifestyle factors, like smoking and obesity (which are both linked to an increased risk of stillbirth), while pre-pregnancy counselling services should also be made available to women who had gone through a stillbirth.

Dr Sohinee Bhattacharya, from the University of Aberdeen, commented: "Stillbirth is one of the most common adverse obstetric outcomes and a traumatic experience for parents. Couples who have experienced a stillbirth need to understand why it happened and want to know the risk for future pregnancies."

(JP)

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"A new study has found that women who have experienced a stillbirth, are four times more likely to suffer a stillbirth in a subsequent pregnancy."