When I miscarried my first two pregnancies I was told that most early trimester miscarriages are "unexplained".   It never sat well with me in the first place and when I really became a citizen researcher eventually I really stopped buying it.

It's not that they aren't explainable - it's that the medical system doesn't bother to find out because of course cost has to be the number one factor.   Also the majority of women apparently go on to have a successful second pregnancy.

Here's the thing I don't buy:  As soon as you start calling something "unexplained" it becomes a "catch all".  It makes it easy to say to every woman who's had a miscarriage that most miscarriages are unexplained.

<b>My miscarriages would have been explained if my doctors had bothered to spend a second to go over my health history and symptoms.  </b>In fact, if my health history had been taken into account it wouldn’t have taken a crystal ball to figure out that I was going to miscarry in the first place! My medical history pointed to:
<ul>
	<li>some serious estrogen dominance symptoms</li>
	<li>hypothyroid symptoms</li>
	<li>trouble conceiving</li>
</ul>
Here were the glaring red flags:
<ul>
	<li><a title="Miscarriages Double for Women with Infertility" href="https://sites.google.com/site/miscarriageresearch/miscarriage-general " target="_blank">risk of miscarriage doubles for women who need more than a year to conceive</a></li>
	<li>hypothyroidism causes infertility and miscarriage</li>
	<li>progesterone deficiency causes miscarriages</li>
</ul>
Does it seem obvious to you?   It sure sends some red flags up for me. If I had been an <b>engaged patient</b> before I started trying to conceive<b> </b>there is no doubt in my mind that I would have had a different outcome.

&nbsp;

<b>The perfect example of why being an engaged patient is crucial to your health:</b> To my doctors those miscarriages were “spontaneous abortions” (the medical term for miscarriage). To me, those were <b><i>my</i></b> beautiful little babies that I never got to meet or hold or nurse or cherish or snuggle or laugh with or hear call me Mama.
<p align="center"><span style="color: #800080; font-family: helvetica;"><b>It’s not that my doctors didn’t care – they just didn’t care as much as I did.</b></span></p>
<p style="text-align: left;" align="center">Read my article <a title="My Baby Taught me My ABCs" href="http://www.drgreene.com/perspectives/2012/08/27/my-baby-taught-me-my-abc%E2%80%99s" target="_blank">My Baby Taught Me My ABCs</a> about how I advocated for myself and had my beautiful baby girl on Dr Greene's website.</p>