Recurrent Miscarriage: How Acupuncture and Naturopathy Help Find the Reason
When a woman comes to me after two or three miscarriages, she is carrying two things simultaneously.
A deep and desperate fear that she will never be able to have a baby. And a deep fear that something is completely broken within her.
The first thing I want every one of those women to understand is this: you are not broken.
Your body is trying hard to do something extraordinary. But there is an interruption — at one or more points in the process — that is getting in the way. My job is that of a detective. To look at all the pieces that go into the puzzle of creating an embryo, holding that embryo, and supporting the development of a healthy pregnancy — and to find where the likely interruptions are in your specific body.
That's a different conversation from "keep trying." And in my experience, it produces very different results.
What "No Explanation" Actually Means
If you've been told there is no explanation for your miscarriages — that everything looks normal and the best advice is to keep trying — I want to offer you a different frame.
It is genuinely difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of any individual miscarriage. I agree with your doctor on that. And if someone has had one miscarriage, watchful waiting may well be appropriate — miscarriage is tragically common, affecting approximately one in five pregnancies, and many women go on to have healthy pregnancies without any intervention.
But recurrent miscarriage — two or more losses — is a different situation. It signals a pattern. And patterns have causes.
The research supports this. A 2024 review published in ScienceDirect examining the immunological mechanisms underlying recurrent miscarriage found that chromosomal abnormalities, structural uterine irregularities, hormonal imbalances including thyroid dysfunction and PCOS, and immune system dysregulation are all established contributors — many of which are not captured in a standard GP blood panel. Read the study.
What I bring to this investigation is a different point of view. Not a competing one — a complementary one. Naturopathic medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine look at the same body through different frameworks, and what one misses, the other often finds.
There is generally always a reason for recurrent miscarriage. It sometimes just requires a different lens to find it.
The Most Common Thing I Find — and What Most Practitioners Miss
In my clinical experience, the most common underlying driver of recurrent miscarriage is depletion.
This is particularly true in secondary infertility — when a woman has successfully carried one pregnancy but is then having recurrent miscarriages in subsequent pregnancies. The reason this pattern is so common is one I've spoken about throughout my work: the body has spent an enormous amount of energy growing a baby, birthing a baby, and keeping that baby alive through the first year. The nutritional, hormonal, and energetic reserves that were drawn on for that process haven't been adequately restored. And a depleted body struggles to hold a subsequent pregnancy.
But depletion isn't only about nutrition — though nutrition is where we usually start. It's about the whole system. And in recurrent miscarriage cases, I'm looking specifically at several interconnected areas.
Progesterone and cortisol. Progesterone — the word literally means pro-gestation — is the hormone responsible for supporting an embryo to embed and a pregnancy to hold. It is also exquisitely sensitive to cortisol. When stress hormone levels are chronically elevated, progesterone production is suppressed. The body, perceiving threat, deprioritises the hormones needed for reproduction. This is not a theory — it is a well-established endocrinological mechanism. And it is almost never investigated in a standard miscarriage workup.
Nutritional status. Folate, B12, iron, zinc, vitamin D — these are not optional extras for a healthy pregnancy. They are the literal building blocks of embryo development, placental formation, and fetal growth. Deficiencies in any of them — particularly in women who have been depleted by a previous pregnancy or by a restrictive diet — can directly compromise the body's ability to sustain a pregnancy.
The thyroid-immune connection. This is one of the most significant and most underappreciated areas in recurrent miscarriage medicine. Thyroid antibodies — anti-TPO and anti-TG — are associated with a significantly increased risk of miscarriage, even in women whose standard thyroid markers appear normal. Research published in the International Journal of Medical Sciences confirmed that Hashimoto's thyroiditis, the most prevalent autoimmune thyroid disease, is strongly associated with recurrent miscarriage through immune dysregulation mechanisms that affect maternal tolerance to the embryo.
The gut microbiome and immune balance. An inflamed, imbalanced gut creates systemic immune dysregulation. An overreactive immune system can then begin to treat an embryo as a foreign body — attacking rather than welcoming it. This gut-immune-miscarriage connection is an emerging area of research that conventional fertility medicine is only beginning to take seriously. Naturopathic medicine has been investigating and treating it for years.
A Real Case — What Was Found and What Happened
Let me share a clinical story — without identifying details — that illustrates what this kind of investigation finds.
A woman came to me with recurrent miscarriage. Standard blood tests from her GP had come back normal. There was no official explanation.
When I looked more deeply, a picture emerged. She had a history of low thyroid function and elevated thyroid antibodies. She was under significant stress. And she had been vegan for the previous five years — a dietary choice that, while valid, can over time create nutritional depletion if not carefully managed.
When I assessed her nutritional profile in detail, I found sub-optimal (but not abnormally low ands so not picked up by her GP) B12, folate, and iron — all of which are common in long-term vegans and all of which directly affect the body's ability to sustain a pregnancy. Her thyroid antibodies were elevated. And her gut microbiome, which I assessed through her history and symptoms, showed signs of imbalance likely driving the immune dysregulation.
We addressed everything simultaneously and methodically.
We corrected the nutritional deficiencies through targeted supplementation — B12, folate, iron in appropriate forms and doses. We optimised her diet, focusing on reducing the most inflammatory foods — gluten and dairy — which are known to exacerbate thyroid antibody levels and gut inflammation. We added blood-building foods and significantly increased protein. We worked to balance her gut microbiome. And we ran weekly acupuncture sessions focused on regulating her nervous system, supporting progesterone production, and building the foundational energy her body needed to hold a pregnancy.
Four months later, she was pregnant. She gave birth to a healthy baby boy.
What the Research Shows
The evidence base for addressing recurrent miscarriage through a combined naturopathic and acupuncture approach is building — though it lags behind the fertility and IVF research in volume.
What is well established:
Thyroid antibodies and miscarriage — anti-TPO and anti-TG — are associated with a significantly increased risk of miscarriage, even in women whose standard thyroid markers appear normal. A 2024 meta-analysis of 28 studies involving 8,875 participants published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Research found that women with elevated thyroid antibodies had twice the risk of recurrent miscarriage compared to women without them — a significant finding that is almost never captured in a standard GP blood panel. Read the study
Immune dysregulation and recurrent miscarriage — A 2024 review published in ScienceDirect examining immunological insights in recurrent spontaneous abortion confirmed that immune factors — including natural killer cell activity, T-helper cell imbalance, and inflammatory cytokines — play a significant role in recurrent pregnancy loss. Read the study
Acupuncture for threatened miscarriage — A feasibility randomised trial conducted by NZ researcher Debra Betts and published in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth examined acupuncture as a treatment for threatened miscarriage, finding it feasible, acceptable, and associated with positive clinical and emotional outcomes for participants. Read the study
What I'd Say to the Woman Who Has Been Told to Just Keep Trying
If you have had one miscarriage, keep trying may be reasonable advice. Miscarriage is common, and for many women the next pregnancy proceeds without difficulty.
But if you have had two or more miscarriages — and particularly if you have been told everything looks normal — I would encourage you to seek a deeper investigation before simply trying again.
Not because there is definitely something catastrophically wrong. But because there may be something addressable that hasn't been looked for yet.
Come with your existing blood tests. Come with your full health history. Come ready to talk about your diet, your stress, your gut, your thyroid history, your previous pregnancies. The more complete the picture, the more clearly I can see where the gaps might be.
What I'm looking for is not a single dramatic answer. I'm looking for the accumulation of small things — nutritional gaps, hormonal patterns, immune signals, stress responses — that together are creating an environment in which your body struggles to hold a pregnancy. Addressing those things, one by one, changes that environment.
There is generally always a reason. It sometimes requires a different point of view to find it.
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