According to a new study, pregnant women are more likely to have a miscarriage in the summer.
Each year, 23 million miscarriages occur in France. As a reminder, a miscarriage is characterized by a spontaneous termination of pregnancy occurring during the first five months of pregnancy. These usually manifest as vaginal bleeding and pain in the lower abdomen. A team of researchers from the Boston University School of Public Health (United States) has just observed through a new study published in the journal Epidemiology that the risk of miscarriage was greater in summer.
A higher risk of miscarriage during the summer
To reach this conclusion, the researchers analyzed the data of 6,104 American women who provided information regarding their pregnancy loss. Conducted for eight years, this study came to compare the number of miscarriages between the different months of the year.
The results show that the risk was 44% greater during the summer months, especially at the end of August. In addition to this, the researchers found that the risk increased in women living in the hottest US states.
A disorder due to the heat that affects more and more pregnant women
Dr. Amelia Wesselink, study leader and assistant research professor of epidemiology at BUSPH, points out in particular that “every time you see a seasonal variation in a result, it can give you clues as to the causes of this result”.
She later said that she and her team had found that “the risk of miscarriage, in particular the risk of early miscarriage before eight weeks of gestation, was highest in summer. Now we need to dig deeper into this to understand what types of exposures are most prevalent in the summer, and which of these exposures might account for the increased risk of miscarriage.”
In addition to this, Amelia Wesselink recalls that previous studies had also noted that heat was also linked to a higher risk of “premature delivery, low birth weight and stillbirth”.