Police in the United Kingdom are using data from period tracking apps and mass spectrometry tests conducted on blood, placenta, and urine to investigate patients who have had “unexplained” miscarriages.

Though abortion is legal in the UK, there are TRAP laws in place requiring certain conditions to be met first, paramount of which is that two separate doctors need to agree that the patient meets the criteria of the 1967 Abortion Act before any treatment can go ahead. Self-managed abortion is a criminal offense with a maximum sentence of life imprisonment in the UK, as is any abortion performed after the pregnancy has progressed passed 23 weeks and six days, unless the patient is at risk of serious physical harm or death, or the fetus has severe developmental anomalies.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
    131·
    1 year ago

    I heard a good news article on unexplained miscarriages on NPR last week.

    There’s a correlation between having a healthy baby and the volume of the placenta. Small placentas result in loss.

    Which makes sense, the placenta is passing all the oxygen and nutrients to the baby, if it fails to size up, the baby is starved of nutrients and… well…

    The doctor who invented the process to measure placental volume is getting the usual pushback from established medicine though. :(

    Worth a listen if you have time:

    https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/placenta-pregnancy-loss/

    • Chetzemoka@startrek.website
      3·
      1 year ago

      Almost all miscarriages are unexplained. Because research into health issues that primarily affect women is still in the fucking dark ages.

      I had a friend who suffered multiple miscarriages (including one that wouldn’t complete itself and almost required surgical intervention because she was bleeding so badly - a procedure that her home state of Ohio is trying to ban now because it’s the exact same procedure that is used in electric elective abortions.

      After so many losses they finally figured out that her progesterone levels were extremely low and supplemented progesterone the next time she got pregnant. She now has a healthy baby boy as a result.

      Medicine doesn’t even have solutions for so many of these problems, and half the government wants to take away one of the few tools available to us to keep women alive and healthy.