Diet and Miscarriage Risk

Any woman who’s experienced a miscarriage can tell you if they could have done anything to prevent it, they would have. While some factors are entirely outside of a pregnant woman’s control, one lifestyle variable that may help reduce miscarriage risk is what foods they eat (or refrain from eating). Let’s see how diet can reduce miscarriage risk, courtesy of a new research analysis of previous studies.

According to the review study, published in Fertility and Sterility, what a woman eats may make a miscarriage less likely. Foods associated with a reduced miscarriage risk when consumed at high amounts (vs. low amounts) include:

> Fruits
> Vegetables
> Dairy products
> Whole grains
> Seafood
> Eggs

In the study, which involved nearly 64,000 women of reproductive age, and focused specifically on diet during the preconception and early-conception (first three months of pregnancy) time frame, high intake of fruit was associated with a 61% miscarriage risk reduction compared with low consumption; high vegetable intake with a 41% risk reduction; 37% for dairy, 33% for grains, and 19% for seafood and eggs.