Progesterone might not help reduce the risk of miscarriage.
Progesterone might not help prevent miscarriages despite having been thought to do so. Many women who have suffered previous miscarriages and become pregnant are prescribed progesterone treatments in order to lower their risk of experiencing another miscarriage.
It has been believed that women with lower levels of progesterone have higher chances of experiencing spontaneous abortions and progesterone hormone treatments have been so far prescribed in order to prevent pregnant women from miscarrying. This course of treatment was particularly used for women who had a history of unexplained miscarriages in the past and a supplement of progesterone was believed to help with the chances of the baby’s survival and with the good outcome of a live birth.
However a new study has shown that the hormone supplement use during the first trimester of pregnancy does not increase the chances of live birth nor does it improve the baby’s chances of survival. The findings were published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine and researchers at the University of Birmingham studied more than 800 cases in order to collect data for their research.
The women that participated were all aged between 18 and 39 years and all had a medical history of multiple unexplained miscarriages. They were all given either a daily supplement of 400 milligrams of progesterone or a placebo drug throughout the first twelve weeks of their pregnancies.
The success rate of pregnancies for women who were given the progesterone supplement was that of 65.8 percent, while the same rate for women who had received the placebo was 63.3 percent. While the difference existed, scientists conducting the study stated that it was not significant enough to suggest that the progesterone supplement was heavily influential when it came to the odds of a pregnancy being successful.
Since there was no significant increase in the rate of successful live births when the progesterone hormone was supplemented researchers concluded that the vaginal administration of this hormone during the first trimester of the pregnancy did not help improve the chances of success when it came to a live birth or the survival of the fetus.
Researchers conducting the study have stated that their findings will now encourage scientists to focus on new, more effective methods of treatment for reducing the risks of miscarriage. The use of progesterone supplements in order to lower the miscarriage risks was first suggested in the 1950s and while it has proven to be ineffective now, scientists have found that it does not have negative effects on pregnant women’s health.
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