What is Miscarriage?

Miscarriages are common experiences during pregnancy. In Australia, a miscarriage is the loss of a pregnancy before 20 weeks' gestation.

At a glance:

• Miscarriage is a pregnancy loss before 20 weeks' gestation
• It is common, occurring in around 1 in 4 pregnancies
• Recurrent miscarriage impacts 1-2% of women.

Early miscarriage

An early miscarriage is one that happens in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy (first trimester). Around 85% of miscarriages occur in the first trimester of pregnancy.

Late miscarriage

Late miscarriage refers to a pregnancy loss between 13-20 weeks' gestation or in the second trimester of pregnancy.  Sometimes definitions differ slightly. Pregnancy loss occurring in the second trimester is much less common, occurring in 1 to 2 in 100 women.

Stillbirth

Stillbirth is the loss of a pregnancy after 20 weeks. In Australia, six babies are stillborn every day.

Recurrent miscarriage

In Australia, the definition of recurrent miscarriage has recently been updated to 2 pregnancy losses before 20 weeks' gestation, whether they are consecutive or not (in a row). Around 1-2% of women experience recurrent miscarriage.

How common is miscarriage?

In Australia, statistics on miscarriage are not collected so it’s difficult to know exactly how common it is. Sometimes a miscarriage happens when a woman isn’t aware she is pregnant or believes it to be a late period. We know that miscarriages occur in at least 15% of confirmed pregnancies. The actual miscarriage rate is likely to be much higher – we estimate it to be around 1 in 4 pregnancies.

Based on these rates and the number of births each year, we estimate around 285 miscarriages occur every day in Australia.

_{Burnside Hospital acknowledges the contribution of Miscarriage Australia to this information.}