Can stress cause a miscarriage? No, but it can affect your pregnancy in other ways

• Stress can't cause a miscarriage directly.
• Chronic stress can affect your pregnancy in other ways, and there is limited evidence to suggest that it may exacerbate some of the main causes of miscarriages.
• Overall, stress is not likely to play a major role in the loss of a fetus, and it is a normal part of any healthy pregnancy.
• This article was medically reviewed by Jamie Lipeles, DO, OB/GYN and founder of Marina OB/GYN.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

A miscarriage occurs when a fetus dies before the 20th week of pregnancy. Miscarriages are pretty common: 15% to 20% of all pregnancies result in one. A 2017 study found that approximately 43% of women who have had a child experienced a miscarriage.

Chromosomal abnormalities, problems with the uterus or cervix, older maternal age, and health problems while pregnant are some of the main causes of miscarriages.

While there's little evidence to suggest that stress can cause a miscarriage, there may be an association, and stress can affect your pregnancy in other ways. Here's what you need to know.

Stress alone can't cause a miscarriage

While there are many factors that can end a pregnancy, Rachel Pilliod, MD, a maternal fetal medicine physician at the Oregon Health and Science University, says there isn't a lot of data to suggest stress alone can cause a miscarriage.

"It's not uncommon to raise a lot of concerns about the association between stress and miscarriage, loss or miscarriage rates, or early pregnancy loss," Pilliod says, "But there's not an abundance of data to suggest that stress is strongly linked to increased rates of miscarriage."

In fact, a 2018 large-scale study in the journal Human Reproduction found no link between maternal stress and early pregnancy loss.

Another study found that maternal distress does not impact the uterine blood flow or umbilical cord blood flow, which means that stress has no effect on the fetus's access to nutrients or normal growth and development.

Most research institutions also state that stress doesn't cause miscarriage. The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in the US does not list stress as a risk factor for miscarriage. The UK's National Health Service advises that stress is not linked to miscarriages, and that this is a common misconception.

There may be a correlation between stress and miscarriages

However, stress may worsen the more common causes of miscarriages, says Dr. Zitao Liu, MD, a fertility doctor at New Hope Fertility Center, which specializes in infertility treatments.

For example, a 2017 study in Scientific Reports found that while chromosomal abnormalities are often the cause of a miscarriage, psychological factors like stress can increase this risk by about 42%. Pilliod says that miscarriage correlates with more chronic versions of stress, such as the stress caused by poverty.

"The stronger associations are in sort of lifelong chronic stress and disparities in terms of socio-economic status, racial disparities, and things of that nature," Pilliod says. "But again, it's a little bit difficult to tease out exactly what the underlying cause of increased miscarriage rate is."

One explanation could be that there's a link between poverty and high blood pressure, according to the Harvard School of Public Health, and high blood pressure is a risk factor for early pregnancy loss.

Overall, stress doesn't seem to directly cause a miscarriage, but it can heighten other risk factors to make a miscarriage possible.

Stress can affect your pregnancy in other ways

While stress might not cause a miscarriage, it can affect a pregnancy in other ways. One study found that of the participants who experienced high stress, 54% had preterm births. There's other data to show that maternal stress influences low infant birth weight and gestational diabetes.

Pilliod says that stress can result in inflammatory and chronic medical conditions, such as cardiovascular diseases. Should a mother have one of those conditions, it could affect placental function and growth restriction. If you don't have underlying risk factors and had an uncomplicated first trimester, Pilliod says stress is unlikely to negatively affect your pregnancy.

Still, Pilliod notes that living through the COVID-19 pandemic can be stressful, especially for pregnant people. Liu says some of the best ways to reduce stress while pregnant are to try out yoga (as long as it doesn't put stress on the abdomen), find a mental health professional for counseling or medical support, and have strong family support.

"The reassuring news that the current stress that we're all kind of sharing in this experience, the stress of it alone is not likely to result in an adverse pregnancy outcome," Pilliod says.

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