ABSTRACT
Substantial disagreement exists about spontaneous prognosis after recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL), probably due to differences in monitoring intensity between studies. An association between RPL and perinatal complications has been reported in many studies. Knowing the incidence of RPL has several applications: it can be used for comparing risks of RPL between different populations, and it can be used for comparing change in risk over time, which is necessary for identifying risk factors. The factor V Leiden genetic polymorphism is the most common cause of activated protein C resistance, which is a risk factor for thrombosis and possibly associated with RPL. The recognition that RPL exhibits a high degree of heritability implies that susceptibility genes for RPL may be inherited by genetic linkage analyses in families with several siblings experiencing RPL. The incidence of RPL has rarely been assessed but is a much more clinically important parameter than the prevalence.
