There may be many reasons contributing to a particular miscarriage, but with a background rate of 20 to 25 per cent, it is unlikely that a single factor will be identified. These are some of the reasons researchers have proposed for miscarriage.
Development problems in the conceptus. There are so many things which need to be right in order for a pregnancy to get going (fertilisation, passage to the uterus, implantation, development of the embryo and placenta) that occasionally something is not going to work. It may be that the conceptus did not have a firm enough hold in the endometrium, or the cells did not divide at the right rate, or the genetic material in that particular egg or sperm was not top quality. The truth is that we don’t usually know. These early-failing pregnancies usually have a good reason for not continuing, and seeing them as pregnancies which were never likely to make it is a reasonable approach. About 50 per cent of miscarriages are thought to occur because of these reasons, and usually this does not mean that the next pregnancy has a higher than average likelihood of miscarriage, because these factors are not necessarily more likely in the next pregnancy.
Hormonal reasons. If the ovary is not churning out enough hormone to sustain the pregnancy, or the placenta when it is formed does not produce enough, the pregnancy may fail. We know that many different factors can affect hormone levels (including health, diet, drugs, stress, other hormone levels etc.) at a particular time, and the circumstances may not necessarily be the same in the next pregnancy.
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