Health news is flooded with reports that researchers have discovered that most women have more miscarriages than live births. The reports claim there are far more miscarriages than live births with the bulk of them coming so early in the pregnancy that the woman is often not aware yet that she was pregnant.

My wife’s first known pregnancy ended in a miscarriage at about 2 ½ months along. Our house was one of 10 places in town one night to be hit by an arsonist. The window at the head of our bed looked into our door-less garage and she woke to all kinds of lights flashing on the far wall. When we went outside, we learned that someone had taken the gas cap off of our truck in garage, syphoned gas and used it to light the garage on fire, leaving the gas cap off the truck. The fire department told us that 5 to 10 more minutes and our truck would probably have exploded, possibly taking the wall and us with it. Needless to say, my wife slept very little after that and two days later, she lost the baby. Like most young couples with a first pregnancy, the loss of the baby was traumatic, but we learned it wasn’t uncommon. Just a side note, authorities never did catch the arsonist who hit more places a week later and then the first stopped.

Since that time, we’ve learned from many couples that they also have experienced one or more miscarriages, usually not due to the traumatic stress that my wife experienced. Some of our friends, it seems, have had numerous miscarriages before they had a successful pregnancy and even then, they had to take it easy and sometimes spend the last couple of months in bed.

I know in our case, doctors told us that there are usually no serious lasting effects of a miscarriage, other than the emotional and stress effects. Physically, it’s often described as being no different than have a menstrual cycle early in the pregnancy.

However, that concept of no lasting physical effects is being challenged with a new report that is connecting miscarriages with the risk of developing Alzheimer’s:

“Local doctors say a recent study presented the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Chicago, followed almost 15,000 women over their lifetime.”

“The findings revealed women who had a miscarriage were at higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s than women who did not miscarry.”

Dr. David Gill, neurologist the Rochester Regional stated:

“There may not be a simple answer. Is it related to the immune system, related to hormones, or its related to stress? It may be many of those things.”

One has to wonder if this is why about 64% of the Alzheimer’s patients in America today are women? It’s quite possible the two things are related, even though researchers aren’t sure what the exact connection is but it may help future research.