Rethinking miscarriage - New Scientist (8 August 2020) - failed implementation

[Orangeflowers]

Hi all,

Thought some of you might be interested in an article I just read as a bit of light relief - Rethinking miscarriage - New Scientist (8 August 2020).

It's a really encouraging article as it removes stigma and demonstrates how hard our bodies work to try to make pregnancies work.

For anyone that is having disappointment at implementation stage, there is an interesting theory:

Apparantly three quarters of miscarriages occur at implementation stage. Turns out that the endometrium acts as a gatekeeper, waving through embryos that are likely to survive and doing everything it can to shut down others. This is controlled by loads of genes and the developing embryo may send signals that make the uterus more or less receptive.

Interestingly there are fewer male births after traumatic stressful events like 9/11. This is because male babies are more vulnerable in infancy, so this response has evolved.

Anyway, a guy called Nick Macklin was mentioned in the article, so I looked him up and found that he does an implantation clinic for women with 3 or so failed transfers. Aparantly this offers diagnostic tests and can recommend potential treatments. There are options for your consultant to refer or for self referral. Think this is all pretty experimental still, so may be a longshot, but thought I'd share in case anyone has interest in the theories and research.

londonwomensclinic.com/fert...

[AdeleMac]

Hi Orangeflowers, very interesting! I'll check out the link. Thanks for sharing x

[Cinderella5]

It sounds like they are opting for endometrial biopsies ERA/EMMA/ALICE which I chose to have some after many failures. We discovered that my implantation window is out of sync to a normal transfer window of 5 days (120hrs) of progesterone.....I need 6 (144hrs). The word does seem to be getting out there and yes probably relatively new but I know of a few ladies this has now worked for.xx

[Orangeflowers in reply to Cinderella5]

Thanks - it's nice to hear that this stuff is being practiced on quite a few ladies. The biopsies and implementation window is what was talked about. I'm wondering if it may turn out I have that issue too as time points in my first cycle seemed slow (2 embryos needed until day 6 to be frozen). If you don't mind me asking, what are the consequences of a later implementation window and what are the treatments? Are these biopsies offered outside London do you know? (I'm based in Yorkshire).

[Cinderella5 in reply to Orangeflowers]

I had mine done in London, in from Scotland. They are performed out with London, just not near me so easier to go to London although I didnt go to this place. My ALICE & EMMA tests were both ok. It was the ERA that showed my results were different to normal. It just means that for a normal transfer the endometrium is receptive for the implantation after 120hrs of progesterone and fo some this is not the case so we are putting back embryos at the wrong time for implantation and once they are able to say when your own personal window is they can plan to start progesterone for transfer specificlt for you.xx

[Hidden in reply to Orangeflowers]

Hi - thanks for posting this! I also had ERA test and was found to be pre-receptive. 12 additional hours on progesterone were recommended. If you go down this route though you always need to do frozen transfers as they can’t replicate the results of an ERA test in a fresh cycle.