More than one in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage - around a quarter of a million in the UK each year.
 Most miscarriages happen in the first three months of pregnancy - but they can happen up to the 24th week. Pregnancy loss after 24 weeks is known as stillbirth.
Any woman who is at risk of pregnancy is also at risk of miscarriage - it can happen to anyone.
Even after several miscarriages, most women have a good chance of a successful pregnancy.
It is common for women who have miscarried to feel high levels of anxiety in a subsequent pregnancy.
Most women never know what has caused them to miscarry. Investigations are generally limited to women who have had three or more miscarriages. Even after investigations, in many cases a specific cause is not found.
One in one hundred pregnancies is ectopic. This means the pregnancy is developing outside the womb - most often in one of the Fallopian tubes. This condition is life-threatening for the mother and, with exceedingly rare exceptions, the pregnancy cannot survive.
Recent research amongst a sample of over 300 women who had experienced miscarriage showed:
nearly half (45%) of them did not feel well informed about what was happening to them
only 29% felt well cared for emotionally
nearly four out of five (79%) received no aftercare
Access to information and emotional support has been shown time and time again to help people cope with the experience of loss.
"Apart from loss, the most painful aspects of miscarriage are failure and grief. If you can talk about your feelings and be met with patient sympathy, you can heal."
Anna Raeburn Patron of The Miscarriage Association
The thing about miscarriage is you go to pieces....
Look at our Miscarriage Section
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SANDS - Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity
