Miscarriage refers to the spontaneous loss of the fetus before one completes the 20th week of pregnancy, taking into account the period from the conception to gestation.  It usually happens in the first trimester of the pregnancy; that is within the seventh and the twelfth week of conception. Recurrent miscarriage is when one suffers from multiple miscarriages in a row.

Possible Causes:

Abnormally-shaped Uterus: Some miscarriages, particularly late ones, are thought to happen because the uterus (womb) has an abnormal shape.
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS): Women with this condition have many small cysts in their ovaries.They also tend to have hormonal problems, including high levels of insulin and male hormone in the blood, which can lead to recurrent miscarriage.
Infection: Some serious infections can cause or increase the risk of single miscarriages. These include toxoplasmosis, rubella, listeria and genital infection. But it is not clear whether infection plays a role in recurrent miscarriage.
Diabetes and Thyroid Problems: Uncontrolled diabetes and untreated thyroid problems can cause miscarriage. But well-controlled diabetes and treated thyroid problems do not cause recurrent miscarriage.
Risk Factors:
Your risk of recurrent miscarriage is higher if:

you and your partner are older; the risk is highest if you are over 35 and your partner over 40; 
you are very overweight. Being very underweight may also increase your risk.
Each new pregnancy loss increases the risk of a further miscarriage. But even after three miscarriages, most couples will have a live baby next time.

Testing After Recurrent Miscarriage:

If you have had three miscarriages in a row, you should be offered tests to try to find the cause. This should happen whether or not you already have one or more children. Testing is not usually offered after one or two early miscarriages (up to 14 weeks) because these are often due to chance. But you might be offered tests after two early miscarriages if you are in your late 30s or 40s or if it has taken you a long time to conceive.
If you had a late (second trimester) miscarriage, where your baby died after 14 weeks of pregnancy, you should be offered tests after this loss.

You can opt for blood tests to check for sticky blood syndrome or APS. Tests would look for antibodies that would help treat the condition. Antibodies are chemicals produced by the body to combat infections.
Get an examination done should the doctor suspect chromosomal abnormalities and in case it is diagnosed, both of you can consult a clinical genetics specialist for genetics counseling.
Your doctor will recommend an ultrasound scan to trace any type of abnormality that may make a pregnancy futile, for instance, a short or a fragile cervix.
Your hopes:

It is natural to pin your hopes on testing as the answer to your problems. But there are three reasons why it may not be the answer you re looking for:

A cause may not be found; when this happens your miscarriages are called  unexplained 
Even if a cause is found, it may not be treatable;
Treatment may not lead to a successful pregnancy. This can happen if a pregnancy miscarries for a different reason than the one being treated.

Understanding Miscarriages

With the progress of her pregnancy, her body keeps changing. One such change is the expansion of her abdomen to accommodate the growing foetus in her uterus. Skin is elastic and hence it keeps extending until the baby is ready to be born. Once the mother delivers her child, her abdomen returns to its original size. But since it shrinks rapidly from its expanded dimension, it leaves stretch marks along her tummy.

What are Stretch Marks?

Stretchmarks are minuscule tears in the tissue layer right underneath your skin. The tears are caused because this supporting layer is stretched all the way to its limit. This manifests as fine white lines running along the length of the abdomen.

How can Stretch Marks be removed? 

Carboxy Therapy -

Carbon dioxide is administered to you just beneath your skin through an injection. This gas has the capacity to dilate and enlarge the blood vessels surrounding the site of the injection. Since the passage has been enlarged, more blood will flow through your vessels. That boosts collagen production. Increased blood flow and improved collagen production help make the stretch marks disappear.

Mesotherapy -

This is yet another therapy that aims to eliminate stretch marks caused by pregnancy. Mesotherapy promotes the production of collagen, elastin and fibroblast. The serum is injected into your bloodstream at the zone of the stretch marks. It also gives your cells micronutrients and amps up your blood supply, all of which make your marks less visible.

You might need 2 to 3 sessions every week to notice visible differences.

Plasma Rich Platelet Therapy

PRP therapy is a very favoured mode of banishing pregnancy-generated stretch marks. A doctor will draw blood from you and this blood will be treated until only very rich growth inducing proteins are left in a concentrated form. Then this plasma will be injected into your skin.

Plasma will help regenerate and develop new cells and tissues and help mend the damaged ones ensuring the stretch marks fade away.

Surgery can be a scary concept. But to get rid of those annoying stretch marks, you don t have to go under the knife. A few non-surgical simple session are all it takes to give you clean and taut skin.

Know How To Treat Post Pregnancy Stretchmarks Without Surgery!

In most diseases, early detection of the disease is the key to control the symptoms, cure, reduce progression and improve prognosis. This holds true for sexually transmitted diseases too. As soon as there is a mild degree of suspicious of having contracted a sexually transmitted disease, it is advisable to go for a test. Most of the STDs can develop into serious complications over a period of time, ranging from infertility to even death.

Complications: Why early diagnosis is important: When left undiagnosed and untreated, most STDs progress to cause severe damage from sterility to cancer to even death. Listed below are some complications associated with each of the common STDs.

Chlamydia: If left untreated, can lead to epididymitis and testicles shrinking and infertility in males. This is a condition where there is pus formation in the scrotum. In women, it can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease which is deep-seated and unable to cure completely. This brings with it symptoms ranging from abdominal pain to uterine infections to sterility.
Syphillis: Undiagnosed syphilis can lead to blindness and deafness. It can also be passed onto the newborn and lead to severe disabilities.
Gonorrhea: If diagnosed early, it can be cured completely with antibiotics. However, if left untreated, it can lead to infertility.
HIV/AIDS: Early diagnosis can help in curtailing the disease. If detected late, then the damage is quite extensive and treatment is both expensive and cannot help restore a lot of functions. 
Symptoms of Sexually transmitted diseases: If there is a doubt of having contracted an STD, then it is very important to get tested for the same. Some of the most common symptoms are listed below.

Women: The most common symptoms in women including painful urination, burning sensation, abnormal vaginal discharge (sometimes bleeding), warts, and abdominal pain.
Men: Testicular pain, urethral pain, painful urination, pain and inflammation in the prostate, sores, fever, and abdominal pain.
Prevention: Always practice safe sexual practices. When in doubt, refrain from sex until diagnosis and treatment is complete.

Testing for STDs: Some of the standard tests include:

1. Herpes- HSV I & II - 
2. Testing HIV-- Kits and ELISA available for testing 
3. Blood test for syphilis antibodies 
4. Chlamydia and Gonorrhoea - from urine as well as swabs for culture
It is understandable that getting tested for STDs is an embarrassing situation. However, there are options available where anonymity can be maintained when getting tested for STDs. This is a wise choice to make as the risk is not just for the person affected but for the partner and in some cases even for the fetus. Early testing can help prevent complications like infertility and cancer.

STD Testing - Why You Should Never Delay?

Certain diseases are fatal, thus, proper measures must be taken to ensure that once the symptoms have been confirmed, treatment must start immediately. Syphilis is one of the most communicable sexually transmitted diseases. If left untreated, syphilis can be fatal.

It can lead to heart disease, brain damage and blindness. A woman infected with syphilis can also pass it on unknowingly to her baby, if she suffers from the disease during her pregnancy. Syphilis can be easily treated, but if left too late, the antibiotics that treat it cannot reverse the damage caused by syphilis.

Syphilis can be tested by
* a blood test: in most cases, a simple blood test can confirm the presence of syphilis by showing signs of the antibodies used to fight it.

* testing the fluid from the sores: this is usually done in the case of primary or secondary syphilis when sores are present on the patient's skin. Looking at a scraping of the sore under a microscope can be used to diagnose syphilis if it shows the presence of the syphilis bacteria.

* testing cerebrospinal fluid: this is performed only in extreme cases of syphilis where the disease may have caused complications with your nervous system. The earlier syphilis is diagnosed, the easier it is to treat.

Syphilis is usually treated with antibiotics amongst which penicillin is the most preferred. If you've had syphilis for less than a year, a single injected dose of penicillin can stop the disease from progressing. You may need additional doses if you have been suffering from syphilis for more than a year. Penicillin is also the only antibiotic that can cure syphilis and suits pregnant women as well. If you have been diagnosed with syphilis during pregnancy, your baby should also be treated for it.

When undergoing treatment for syphilis, here are a few other points to keep in mind:
* abstain from oral, vaginal and anal sex until the sores have healed
* get blood tests at regular intervals for at least a year after treatment
* get tested for an hiv infection
* fevers, nausea, headaches and chills are normal side effects associated with syphilis treatment
* if you are allergic to penicillin, let your doctor know so that you can be given an alternative antibiotic
* if you have a lesion around your mouth, syphilis can even spread through kissing another person

The good news is that once you've been cured of syphilis, it does not recur. However, it is recommended to always use protection while having intercourse and abstain from sexual activities if your partner suffers from syphilis.

Best Treatment For Syphilis Problem | Precaution & Tests

Know about stretch marks post pregnancy and the ways you can get rid of them.

Stretch Marks Post Pregnancy - Ways You Can Get Rid of them

Cervical Cancer is most treatable when it is diagnosed and treated early. Problems found can usually be treated, depending on their severity and on the woman's age, past medical history, and other test results. Most women who get routine cervical cancer screening and follow up as told by their provider can find problems before cancer even develops. Prevention is always better than treatment.
Other HPV cancers are also more treatable when diagnosed and treated early. Although there is no routine screening test for these cancers, you should visit your doctor regularly for checkups.
Your doctor might recommend the HPV test if:
Your Pap test was abnormal, showing atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS)
You're age 30 or older
The HPV test is available only for women; no HPV test yet exists to detect the virus in men. However, men can be infected with HPV and pass the virus along to their sex partners.
What is a HPV Test?
The HPV test is a screening test for cervical cancer, but the test doesn't tell you whether you have cancer. Instead, the test detects the presence of HPV, the virus that causes cervical cancer, in your system. Certain types of HPV - including types 16 and 18 - increase your cervical cancer risk.
Knowing whether you have a type of HPV that puts you at high risk of cervical cancer means that you and your doctor can better decide on the next steps in your health care. Those steps might include follow-up monitoring, further testing, or treatment of abnormal or precancerous cells.
Pap- HPV Test:
HPV spreads through sexual contact and is very common in young women, so, frequently, the test results will be positive. However, HPV infections often clear on their own within a year or two. Cervical changes that lead to cancer take several years - often 10 years or more - to develop. For these reasons, you might follow a course of watchful waiting instead of undergoing treatment for cervical changes resulting from an HPV infection.
A combination Pap-HPV test is performed in your doctor's office and takes only a few minutes. You'll lie on your back on an exam table with your knees bent, your doctor will gently insert an instrument called a speculum into your vagina. The speculum holds the walls of the vagina apart and a flat scraping device called a spatula or a soft brush is used to take samples of your cervical cells. This doesn't hurt, and you may not even feel the sample being taken.
Results of your HPV test are given as positive or negative 
Positive HPV test:A positive test result means that you have a type of high-risk HPV that's linked to cervical cancer. It doesn't mean that you have cervical cancer now, but it's a warning sign that cervical cancer could develop in the future. Your doctor will probably recommend a follow-up test in a year to see if the infection has cleared or to check for signs of cervical cancer.
Negative HPV test: A negative test result means that you don't have any of the types of HPV that cause cervical cancer.
Depending on your test results, your doctor may recommend one of the following as a next step:
Normal monitoring:If you're over age 30, your HPV test is negative and your Pap test normal, you'll follow the generally recommended schedule for repeating both tests in five years.
Colposcopy: In this follow-up procedure, your doctor uses a special magnifying lens (colposcope) to more closely examine your cervix.
Biopsy:In this procedure, sometimes done in conjunction with colposcopy, your doctor takes a sample of cervical cells (biopsy) to be examined more closely under a microscope.
Removal of abnormal cervical cells:To prevent abnormal cells from developing into cancerous cells, your doctor may suggest a procedure to remove the areas of tissue that contain the abnormal cells.
Seeing a specialist: If your Pap test or HPV test results are abnormal, your healthcare provider will probably refer you to a gynecologist for a colposcopic exam. If test results show that you might have cancer, you may be referred to a doctor who specializes in treating cancers of the female genital tract (gynecologic oncologist) for treatment.

Cervical Treatment Diagnosis, Tests and Treatment

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