Ovulation after Miscarriage

Everything you need to know!

Miscarriages are both emotionally and psychically draining on a woman. With the use of pregnancy tests that are not sensitive enough to find out of you are pregnant days before your missed period, women are now finding out that there are many early losses of pregnancy than we have known about in the past. Many pregnancies are lost in the first few days after implantation, either because of hormone challenges or the egg improperly implanting in the uterus. We were unaware about this before because many times this miscarriage can actually "mask" itself as a heavy period, since you are usually bleeding at about the same time of your normal period.

Most miscarriages occur in the first trimester (about +75%) while 15% can be lost in the second trimester. Depending on how far along you were at time of the lost pregnancy can determine when you will enter into a normal menstrual cycle. For uncomplicated miscarriages, you can expect a regular cycle from about 4 to 6 weeks after the miscarriage. Depending on the women, this can be even earlier or later.

If you have a more complicated miscarriage, you may want to talk to your doctor about when you will be back to a regular cycle so that you can try at a pregnancy again.

For ovulation to occur after pregnancy, your hCG levels (or human chorionic gonadotropin levels) must return to zero before you will return to your natural cycle. hCG causes other hormones in your body that are important in ovulation to halt because you are now pregnant and to not need to prepare for another ovulation. Usually the hCG levels will drop dramatically once the pregnancy tissue is released during your miscarriage.

Those who have been pregnant before or have researched pregnancy tests may be familiar with hCG since it is the hormone that your pregnancy tests will look for to see if you are in fact pregnant or not.

For those of you who have had a miscarriage, I am deeply sorry for your loss. Miscarriages can be a very emotionally draining situation to go through. I wish all of you the best of luck in your journey to becoming pregnant and starting a family!