Campaign for care

In June, Olivia Blake MP delivered the Tommy’s charity petition to Parliament in support of the charity’s campaign to improve miscarriage care.

The petition demanded that the Government make urgent changes to miscarriage care - particularly the rule that women have to experience 3 recurrent miscarriages before becoming eligible for tests or treatment.

It has now received nearly 230,000 signatures, and Tommy’s have been in talks with policy-makers & the NHS about it for some time. But this week has seen a real breakthrough with new national miscarriage care guidelines published by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG).

The revised guidelines suggest that the term ‘recurrent miscarriage’ should be redefined so that losses don’t have to happen in a row for parents to receive support.

Instead, they encourage doctors to use their discretion after two miscarriages if they suspect an issue might be causing the losses, and state that non-consecutive losses should still be treated as recurrent miscarriage.

They also echo calls for more evidence-based and supportive care, drawing on findings from a Tommy’s study which showed that a daily dose of progesterone could prevent up to 8,450 losses a year, if prescribed to women with early pregnancy bleeding and a history of miscarriage.

We are absolutely delighted with this news - which will make a real difference to the care that women receive in the future!