When you are happily pregnant, nurturing the unborn in your swelling abdomen, nothing could seem further from your own particular reality than you might in fact be attempting to reject it. For most women, the very thought of rejecting the fetus would be an anathema. They love their partners; they very much want a child; so how could they, of all people, be rejecting this desperately wanted baby? But, your body may in fact be reacting to foreign tissue; in what, outside of pregnancy, would be considered a very normal manner.

Do be reassured in this chapter on the effects of the body’s autoimmune system in pregnancy that I am not talking about psychogenic issues. If you have an immunologicl problem, no amount of positive thinking, no amount of stress reduction and bed rest would alone overcome the condition.

Let me also reassure you that with fear of AIDS, which permeates our time, the word immune can trigger negative feelings in many women’s minds. The immune system is indeed extremely important in keeping us healthy and strong. But the immunological problems I shall describe do not bear any relationship to the virus-induced breakdown in immune protection that has so devastated our society.

This fascinating high-tech field of immunology—within the realm of miscarriage reseach—has already helped many hundreds of women (their partners). The type of woman offered testing, to see if she dose have immunological problems, is the classic repeated early miscarrier for whom no “obvious” cause can be found.

It is now thought that possibly one-third or more of recurrent miscarries are affected, which means that many women may be eligible for this type of help. However, the treatment is still considered controversial and experimental. Nevertherless, the statistics emerging from major research centers show success rates of 75 to 90 percent. Indeed, respected experts on miscarriage now believe this will soon be accepted as an important known cause of and treatment for recurrent miscarriage.
For women who have given up hope, these figures, as you can imagine, are very encouraging, and waiting lists are growing.