Is disability a risk factor for miscarriage?

New Rochelle, NY, December 3, 2019–A new study compared the proportion of women with any cognitive, physical, or independent living disability who experienced a miscarriage during the previous 5-year period to women without disabilities. Regardless of the type of disability, a greater proportion of women with a disability had a miscarriage, according to the study results published in Journal of Women’s Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. Click here to read the full-text article on the Journal of Women’s Health website through January 3, 2020.

The article entitled “Miscarriage Occurrence and Prevention Efforts by Disability Status and Type in the United States” was coauthored by Mekhala Dissanayake, MPH, Blair Darney, PhD, MPH, Aron Caughey, MD, PhD, and Willi Horner-Johnson, PhD, Oregon Health & Science University (Portland), Portland State University, and National Institute of Public Health (Cuernavaca, Mexico).

The researchers analyzed data on 3,843 women in the National Survey of Family Growth and reported that women with disabilities were more likely to receive services to prevent miscarriage compared to women without disabilities. They also found that among women who had a miscarriage, only women with independent living disability were significantly more likely to have experienced two or more miscarriages compared to women without disabilities.

Susan G. Kornstein, MD, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Women’s Health and Executive Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women’s Health, Richmond, VA, states: “The researchers found that higher proportions of pregnancies in women with disabilities ended in miscarriages compared to women without disability. Further research is needed to understand why this is true despite higher odds of receiving preventive services among women with disabilities.”

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Journal of Women’s Health, published monthly, is a core multidisciplinary journal dedicated to the diseases and conditions that hold greater risk for or are more prevalent among women, as well as diseases that present differently in women. Led by Editor-in-Chief Susan G. Kornstein, MD, Executive Director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women’s Health, Richmond, VA, the Journal covers the latest advances and clinical applications of new diagnostic procedures and therapeutic protocols for the prevention and management of women’s healthcare issues. Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed on the Journal of Women’s Health website. Journal of Women’s Health is the official journal of the Society for Women’s Health Research.

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including LGBT Health, Transgender Health, Population Health Management, and Breastfeeding Medicine. Its biotechnology trade magazine, GEN (Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News), was the first in its field and is today the industry’s most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm’s 90 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers website.