A miscarriage can happen over a period of several days, but the pregnancy in most women with some bleeding and a threatened abortion will continue normally and they will have a healthy baby.
When you are bleeding in the first 2-3 months and especially if you have pain in the lower abdomen, then the first thing to exclude is an ectopic pregnancy. If you previously had a sonogram and your doctor saw the pregnancy inside the uterus, then an ectopic pregnancy is usually not present.
Many women who bleed are concerned about the possibility of miscarriage and may want to be reassured by seeing the fetal heart beat on ultrasound.
What you need to understand is that seeing or listening to the fetal heart beat does not necessarily mean that if in fact it’s not a miscarriage and that you are not in the process of having a miscarriage. Even if you see the fetal heartbeat, a miscarriage may sometimes develop over several days and become evident only a few days later.
With that understanding, listening to or seeing the fetus’ heartbeat does not mean you are not having a miscarriage.
But if it makes you feel more comfortable and coming in offers you comfort and reassurance then please let your doctor know and ask to make arrangements for a sonogram.
The cause of a miscarriage in the first trimester is often poorly understood. Many doctors feel it indicates a faulty pregnancy, usually an abnormal implantation or an abnormal fetus. For neither case is there any treatment.
Many doctors suggest that patients with a threatened miscarriage or bleeding stay in bed. Staying in bed may decrease the bleeding but no study has shown that this in fact prevents a miscarriage. Unfortunately, at the present time there is no definite treatment for this kind of bleeding in the early stages of pregnancy.
Read More:
Miscarriage/Pregnancy Loss
Ectopic Pregnancy
High Blood Pressure (Hypertension)