(Health.com) -- When women have a miscarriage, one of the first questions they often ask is how long they should wait before getting pregnant again. A new study suggests that the sooner they start trying, the better.
Women who conceive within six months of a miscarriage instead of waiting up to a year reduce their risk of another miscarriage by one-third, and they also increase their chances of a healthy and successful pregnancy, according to the study, which appears in the journal BMJ.
Even though as many as 1 in 5 pregnancies end in miscarriage, recommendations for getting pregnant afterward are all over the map. Many doctors tell women to wait until after a normal menstrual cycle, while others advise waiting up to 18 months. The World Health Organization recommends waiting at least six months.
The six-month window highlighted in the study is "faster than most people would have thought," says ob-gyn Catherine Spong, M.D., the chief of the Pregnancy and Perinatology branch of the National Institutes of Health. CNN
