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Pregnancy loss is a difficult, but common, experience: About one in four women loses a pregnancy in her lifetime.
Early pregnancy loss means losing a pregnancy earlier than 20 weeks after the first day of your last menstrual period. The medical term for this loss (which occurs without anything being done to cause it) is spontaneous abortion. Because the word “abortion” is associated with a procedure done on purpose to end a pregnancy, early pregnancy losses often have been referred to as miscarriages.
Most women become aware that they might be losing a pregnancy when they begin spotting or bleeding, even though they have tested positive for pregnancy. Sometimes a pregnancy loss is suspected during a routine prenatal exam, ev…