Miscarriages are devastating and often seem to happen out of the blue, but scientists may have found a new high-tech way to predict which pregnancies are likely to end in miscarriage and which aren’t. Using 3D ultrasound imaging with virtual reality technology can create a hologram of the developing embryo to see if it is maturing as planned.
This is different from measuring the size of the embryo, which is normally done during pregnancy. Embryos in pregnancies that end in miscarriage take longer to develop than pregnancies that lead to live births, explained study author Dr. Melek Rousian, obstetrician-gynecologist at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Cause of the miscarriage
The study, published March 26 in the journal Human Reproduction, does not provide clues about the potential cause of the miscarriage, but the technology may help identify high-risk pregnancies earlier and/or reassure expectant parents.
Rousian says “Couples who have had multiple miscarriages can be very concerned about the condition of the embryo if we were able to demonstrate that the development of their embryo was normal at these early stages of pregnancy, we could provide reassurance and comfort”.
For this study, researchers tracked embryo development using 3D ultrasound imaging and virtual reality technology in 644 pregnant women from 7 to 10 weeks after conception. They were followed for one year after delivery.
Of these, 33 pregnancies ended in spontaneous abortion. During the first 10 weeks of pregnancy, the embryo is assigned a so-called Carnegie stage number from 1 to 23 based on its external features.
The study showed that embryos in pregnancies that ended in miscarriage took four days longer to reach the final Carnegie stage than those that resulted in a healthy baby. The study showed that the longer an embryo takes to develop, the more likely it is to lead to a miscarriage.
The study found that pregnancies that ended in miscarriage were also associated with a shorter embryo length from the top of the head (crown) to the bottom of the buttocks (posterior).
The new findings hold true even after the researchers controlled for other factors that could affect miscarriage risk, such as age, alcohol consumption, smoking, and the use of folic acid or other vitamin supplements during pregnancy.
Scientists did not have access to genetic testing after abortions, so they did not know if the embryos had genetic abnormalities that could have caused the abortion.
Although the new study does not help understand why miscarriages occur, the results may be able to identify the risk of miscarriage earlier, said Dr. Ashley Wiltshire, who reviewed the findings.
“Many miscarriages are caused by genetic abnormalities in the embryo,” said Wiltshire, a specialist in reproductive endocrinology and infertility at the Columbia University Fertility Center in New York. “Because genetic testing was not included in this study, it is impossible to determine the correlation of genetic status with their findings regarding embryo development.”
She suggested that women with a history of recurrent pregnancy loss undergo early and repeated ultrasound examinations during pregnancy. But Wiltshire warned that even if an embryo is tracked late, it does not mean a miscarriage is inevitable.
“The rate of embryonic development seen on ultrasound may correlate with a higher risk of miscarriage; it does not confirm with 100% certainty that a miscarriage will occur,” Wiltshire said.
