What is the best method for managing early miscarriage?

### What you need to know An early miscarriage is the loss of pregnancy at ≤13 weeks’ gestation.1 It is a major life event and can have a potentially devastating psychological impact on the woman in addition to the physical effects such as bleeding and pain.2 About one in four pregnancies, where a woman has missed a menstrual period and has a positive pregnancy test, ends in early miscarriage.3 Nearly 125 000 early miscarriages occur annually in the UK, accounting for 50 000 hospital admissions.4 Early miscarriage is usually diagnosed by pelvic ultrasound after a woman has experienced vaginal bleeding or abdominal pain. Women with a complete miscarriage, where expulsion of pregnancy tissue is complete, are managed conservatively without further intervention. Women with a missed or incomplete miscarriage (box 1) may require further intervention. Box 1 ### Categories of early miscarriageRETURN TO TEXT Surgery under general anaesthesia used to be the standard treatment for miscarriage,6 but a wider choice of management options is now available (fig 1).3 Over the past two decades there has been a shift towards individualised care and shared decision making between clinician and patient. Up to 70% of women with miscarriage opted for …