Multiple miscarriages linked to heart attack

Women who suffer multiple miscarriages are five times more likely to have a heart attack later in life, a new study suggests.

German researchers looked at data from more than 11,500 women who had been pregnant at least once. Around a quarter had suffered at least one miscarriage and two per cent experienced a childbirth.

Of 2876 women who had miscarried, 69 had done so more than three times.

Those who had more than three miscarriages were nine times as likely to have a heart attack. However, this fell to five times after the results were adjusted for other heart attack risk factors, such as weight, smoking, and alcohol consumption.

Each miscarriage increased heart attack risk by 40 per cent, and women who miscarried more than twice were more than four times as likely to have a heart attack.

The findings also showed that having at least one stillbirth increased the risk of a heart attack by 3.5 times.

Researchers from the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg said: “These results suggest that women who experienced spontaneous pregnancy loss are at a substantially higher risk of [heart attack] later in life.”

They added that multiple miscarriages should be considered as an "important indicator" for future cardiovascular disease.

Judy O’Sullivan, Senior Cardiac Nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: “While this is certainly an interesting observation it gives no proven explanation for an increase in heart attack risk.

"It’s not simply a case of saying multiple miscarriages increase your risk of a heart attack – lots of other factors come into play.

“It’s known in some cases of multiple miscarriages that the women have previously undiagnosed heart and circulatory disease, or significant risk factors for the disease, so they may have an increased heart attack risk which is unrelated to the pregnancy."

The findings are published in the journal Heart.

This article was published on Thu 2 December 2010