This is one of a series of news items from abstracts of studies presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine as complied by Dr. David Meldrum, Scientific Director of Reproductive Partners. We appreciate the enormous amount of work it takes to compile and comment on these abstracts.

  Miscarriage is a major factor in many couples' inability to achieve a healthy child. Not only does it delay the couples' reaching their ultimate goal, but it results in many negative emotions that are often associated with the greiving process including guilt. It is not unusual for a patient to ask, "What did I do to cause this?"

A study reported at the ASRM meeting confirmed what we have known for a long time-it's usually an abnormality in the chromosomes that causes a miscarriage.  In this study, cytogenetic analysis (karyotypes) of 299 first spontaneous miscarriages in infertilie women, most of who had IVF, showed that 72% of the fetuses were abnormal. Women under 38 had more single X chromosomes (monosomy X) and women over 38 had more instances of an extra chromosome (trisomy). Given the high rate of abnormalities, a D&C for cytogenetic analysis can be offered as an option that may explain the loss, reduce the guilt and future concern regarding a recurrent cause. Technology can now determine if the source of the abnormality is maternal or paternal and confirm whether a normal female karyotype is fetal in origin or from maternal contamination.