Miscarriage could be linked to heart attack risk

Repeated miscarriages could dramatically increase the risk of a woman having a heart attack

Research published today indicates that mothers who suffer repeated miscarriages could be five times more likely to have a heart attack in later life.

The study, which recorded the links between pregnancy loss and Myocardial Infarction (MI), or heart attack and stroke, was carried out at the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg using 11,500 female volunteers.

One researcher said: ‘These results suggest that women who experienced spontaneous pregnancy loss are at a substantially higher risk of MI in later life.’

Of the volunteers, almost a quarter had suffered at least one miscarriage, and of those 69 had experienced pregnancy loss three times.

Published online in the Journal Heart, the findings state those who had more than three miscarriages were nine times more likely to have a heart attack, while a stillbirth increased the risk by 3.5 times.

The risk fell when factors such as weight and smoking were taken into consideration, but the correlation between miscarriage and heart attacks is significant.

However, the British Heart Foundation are keen to point out that in some cases of multiple miscarriages, women have undiagnosed heart and circulation diseases that carry a risk and are unrelated to pregnancy.

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