However, the definition of miscarriage used in this study was 'less' than 36 weeks.
Some studies define stillbirth starting at 20 weeks (and Love et al use a 24-week cutoff), so their definition of stillbirth overlaps with our definition of miscarriage.
Third, the definition of miscarriage changed during the study period, from the inclusion of losses at <28 weeks of gestation to the inclusion of losses at <24 weeks of gestation after October 1992.
This is a longer gestation than is used in most definitions of miscarriages, and hence, some of our findings about 'miscarriages' may not hold if they were defined using a shorter gestation.
Confusion over the definition of stillbirth, intrapartum death, and miscarriage, when collecting reports in and out of facilities, makes consistent registration challenging.
One trial didn't report the definition of "recurrent miscarriage".
Rates of miscarriage—We used the ratio of pregnancy losses before 20 weeks' gestational age to total pregnancies, with a correction for pregnancies and induced abortions that might have ended in miscarriage (see appendix 2 on bmj.com), as the definition of the rate of miscarriage.
The current study included women with a history of two or more consecutive first trimester miscarriages, depending on the definition used by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology [ 2] rather than the definition of three or more miscarriages [ 6], which is used traditionally to define RM.
Furthermore, the definition of terms, such as miscarriage and stillbirth, may differ from the ones generally accepted in some studies, as mentioned previously.
In 2014, the government introduced new legislation providing, for the first time, a statutory definition of what constitutes a miscarriage of justice for the purposes of determining eligibility for compensation.
