ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, July 3, 1996 TAG: 9607030059
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BIRMINGHAM, ALA.
SOURCE: Associated Press
Women who undergo amniocentesis during the 11th through 14th weeks of a pregnancy are 11 times more likely to suffer a miscarriage than mothers-to-be who wait a little longer, a study found.
Amniocentesis is used most often to detect birth defects in the unborn, especially for women ages 35 and older. Although it normally is performed during the 15th through 18th weeks of pregnancy, many women want to know about their baby sooner.
Women who underwent amniocentesis earlier had a miscarriage rate of 2.2 percent, compared with 0.2 percent in other women, researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham found. The study appeared Monday in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, published by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Dr. Cynthia Brumfield, author of the study, said more research is needed to determine the reason for the increase, whether the procedure itself is a factor, and even whether the miscarriage numbers were natural for that stage of pregnancy.
``Our data suggested it might be more procedure-related,'' she said.
The study compared the pregnancies of 314 women who had amniocentesis during weeks 11 to 14 with 628 women who had the test in the 16th through 19th weeks.
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