DNA Frag & Miscarriage

[Bubbletea1988]

Hi,

Looking for advice on miscarriage rates when DNA frag is high but you’ve conceived naturally. History is one LC conceived v easily 2.5yrs ago and uncomplicated pregnancy. Started for number 2 end of last year and for pregnant again quickly, this ended in a MMC at 8 weeks (baby stopped growing 6 weeks). We have had two dna frag tests since then as my husband has a varicocele (which is being embolized on Wednesday this week) and one SCSA test came back at 20DFI in mid March and a comet test came back at 34% end of April. We have just found out we’re pregnant again naturally 4th cycle post miscarriage and I’m a mess worrying about miscarriage. Our second test was firmly in the increased risk of miscarriage/you can’t get pregnant naturally bracket so I don’t know what to think. Any advice would be much appreciated as I am already starting to feel trauma imagining a second loss.

[Hanj10]

I’m so sorry you’re going through this. I don’t know about rates etc but for me I had 5 consecutive miscarriages before we discovered husband had high dna fragmentation. I also had immune issues though so that alone wasn’t the only cause. I really hope you have a good outcome. The only thing that helped me through each pregnancy was doing private hcg blood tests and loads of private scans x

[Bubbletea1988 in reply to Hanj10]

Thank you so much for your post. I am so so sorry for your losses, I can’t even comprehend how you managed going through that!

Everything I see online suggests DNA frag leads to multiple miscarriages and very few live births so I’m not feeling optimistic at all. Can I ask how high your husbands levels were? I’ve had my husband on impryl since 1st April so he was on it for 64 days when we conceived which doesn’t feel enough time to have made a difference as I know sperm needs 90 days.

I did HCG at the beginning although not sure how reassuring I found it. Results at 14dpo were 195, 17dpo 438, 20 dpo 1573. The second test wasn’t a 48hr doubling time which got me into a total tizz, but the first and 3rd give me 48hrs. My numbers just seem so low to what I see online and equally never done HCGs in prior pregnancies so have no benchmark between my successful and miscarriage.

Waiting until 7 weeks for a scan as we went at 6+3 last time and it just causes more stress as there was a heartbeat but low and measuring a few days behind so could have gone either way. Would like to avoid that limbo if poss this time round.

[Hanj10 in reply to Bubbletea1988]

I can't remember his exact numbers sorry but it was classed as very high fragmentation on the scale. He was on a high antioxidant supplement called menevit for 3 months before we then did IVF - we didn't repeat his sperm test due to funding so don't know how big a difference it made but we ended up with 5 PGTA normal embryos so it must have made some difference. Our 2nd FET worked after sorting my immune issues out with steroids, intralipids and blood thinners. The HCG levels sound good to me and every pregnancy is different - my first successful pregnancy my levels were so high I thought it was twins but my current pregnancy the levels were low in comparison but all is ok so as long as the numbers roughly double that's encouraging. x

[Bubbletea1988 in reply to Hanj10]

That’s reassuring to know, thank you. And so pleased everything has worked out for you. Did you do IVF or ICSI out of interest?

[Hanj10]

Sorry yes we did ICSI. I really hope this is a good outcome for you but if it isn't make sure you look after yourself - I didn't process any of my grief I just had tunnel vision trying to get pregnant and stay that way and ended up having a total mental breakdown - I really recommend talking therapy which also helped with the anxiety of being pregnant. x