Study Finds Women Who Suffer Miscarriage May Have Long-Term Psychological Stress

BOSTON (CBS) - It's estimated that one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage, and a new study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology finds that many of those women suffer long-term psychological distress.

Researchers in London and Belgium looked at more than 650 women who had experienced early loss, either from miscarriage before 12 weeks or from an ectopic pregnancy, where the embryo grows outside of the uterus.

One month later, they found that almost a third of women suffered post-traumatic stress, one in four experienced moderate-to-severe anxiety and about 10-percent had moderate-to-severe depression. Nine months later, many of those women were still experiencing symptoms.

Women who experience early loss need to be monitored for psychological distress, but the trend for more couples to speak openly about pregnancy loss is a step in the right direction.