Although previous animal research has led some researchers to suggest that fever in pregnant women may result in an increased risk of miscarriage, a recent study found no increased risk when fever was present during the first 16 weeks of pregnancy.
However, researchers were unable to assess the risk of miscarriage before the sixth week of pregnancy and could not rule out fever as a potential risk factor during very early pregnancy.
Researchers surveyed over 24,000 women in the first half of their pregnancy and obtained information such as fever frequency, duration and temperature.
Of the women, close to 4,450 reported that they had a fever and 1,145 eventually had a miscarriage. Though fever was quite common during this stage of pregnancy, no association was found between fever and fetal death, even after adjustments were made for other risk factors.
Few studies have investigated this association between fever and miscarriage, however, and researchers note that it is difficult to completely rule out fever as a potential cause of fetal death.
The Lancet November 16, 2002;360:1526, 1552-1556
Another confirmation that provides evidence to support the concept that, frequently, bacteria are actually present to help keep us healthy and are not necessarily the major reason why we get sick. This idea seems to be gaining momentum, as an additional report recently found that certain bacteria might lessen a woman’s risk of having a stillbirth.
Other evidence that supports the importance of bacteria in maintaining our health can be seen in the increasingly adopted Hygiene Hypothesis.
The Hygiene Hypothesis is a rather remarkable theory and is quite contrary to the standard paradigm that all bugs are bad for us. It is one of the first inklings that traditional medicine is starting to understand the truth. Germs do not really cause the disease, our weakened immune systems, which allow germs to get out of balance, trigger a series of reactions that can cause us harm.
Most of the time, illness can be traced back to one of the following: