Test that could stop 250,000 pregnancies ending in miscarriage

A woman's risk of miscarriage can be predicted by a groundbreaking new test, doctors said today.

The simple urine check could eventually help to "rescue" many of the 250,000 pregnancies a year - in the UK alone - that end with the loss of a baby.

Women could also be spared potentially harmful and unnecessary interventions such as enforced bed rest and the use of hormone-based drugs.

Researchers at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester found they could predict the outcome of more than nine out of 10 problematic pregnancies by measuring the amount of bleeding a pregnant woman suffers and the levels of pregnancy hormone in her blood or urine.

Dr Kaltum Adam, who led the study, said the test, which is inexpensive and did not need sophisticated equipment, could encourage experts to devise ways of halting the loss of a baby.

She said: "This research has, for the first time, offered us a robust tool to begin to attempt to rescue pregnancies threatening to miscarry when, currently, all we can do is fold our hands and hope for the best."

The St Mary's research was based on the monitoring of 112 women at risk of miscarriage who were between six and 10 weeks pregnant.

Around one in five pregnancies is threatened by miscarriage and women in up to a fifth of these cases lose their unborn child.

Until now, doctors have been unable to predict how likely it was that a woman whose unborn baby was in danger would miscarry. This meant they were unable to target mothers-to-be most at risk, or to offer them counselling.

Dr Adam said: "This has led to wasteful and potentially harmful interventions, including unnecessary blood tests, ultrasound scans, hospital admissions for bed rest, sexual abstinence, low dose aspirin and progesterone supplementation."

The research was revealed at the annual conference of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology in Stockholm.