Abstract

Background: Patients with Polycystic ovarian syndrome is found to have an increased risk of spontaneous abortions. This study aims to determine the effect of PCOS status on the risk of early pregnancy loss in a cohort of pregnant women where the PCOS status was determined by standard criteria.

Materials and Methods: This is a prospective cohort study conducted over a period of one year. Antenatal women attended the obstetrics OP department SAT hospital, Govt medical college, Trivandrum soon after pregnancy was confirmed and diagnosed to have polycystic ovarian syndrome according to Rotterdam criteria were included in the study.  For comparison we selected the same number of pregnant women, those attended in our antenatal OP department soon after pregnancy was confirmed and they had regular cycles and in ultrasound scan showed normal ovaries and they didn’t had any features of PCOS. Student t- test or Chi-square tests were used to test the difference between PCOS and non PCOS group.

Results: The incidence of first trimester spontaneous abortion was 29.7 % in the study group.  The chance of recurrent pregnancy loss was found to be increased in PCOS group compared to control group, but statistically not significant (p=0.354). Occurrence of missed abortion in PCOS pregnancy patients is high (17.8%) compared to non PCOS pregnancy patients.

Conclusion: PCOS women are at increased risk of early pregnancy loss. Several mechanisms underlying the increased risk of early pregnancy loss in women with PCOS have been proposed.

Keywords: PCOS, early pregnancy loss, BMI.