Nearly half of female surgeons (42%) who were recently surveyed have had a miscarriage or stillbirth — twice the rate of women aged 30 to 40 years in the general population — according to an article published online on July 28 in JAMA Surgery.
Dr Erika Rangel
The authors, led by Erika L. Rangel, MD, Division of General and Gastrointestinal Surgery, Department of Surgery, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, also found that after the losses, the women took little or no time off.
Of 692 surgeons surveyed, 347 female surgeons had experienced a pregnancy loss. Of those, 244 had had a miscarriage at less than 10 weeks' gestation, 92 had had a miscarriage between 10 and 20 weeks' gestation, and 11 had had a stillbirth (loss at 20 weeks or later).
Most Took No Time Off After Miscarriage
After a miscarriage, 225 of 336 women (75%) took no time off work, and after a stillbirth, 5 of 11 (45%) took off 1 week or less, the authors found.
The study addressed an issue that people have talked about anecdotally or on social media, Rangel told Medscape Medical News.
"This was finally an opportunity to do a study of enough magnitude to show that there is a very quantifiable difference in complication rate, use of IVF [in vitro fertilization], and the age at which we have children.
