A daily low dose of aspirin could help boost live births in women with high levels of inflammation who have previously lost a pregnancy, according to a new study from the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).
The researchers tracked outcomes for over 1,200 women, aged 18-40 who were trying to conceive and had a prior pregnancy loss. A little more than half of the women (55%) went on to have a live birth.
The women were randomly assigned to receive either daily low-dose aspirin (81 milligrams) or a placebo. Among women with low or medium blood levels of CRP, researchers found no significant difference in birth rates.
Women who benefited from the aspirin treatment had high levels of C-reactive protein (CRP) a substance in the blood indicating system-wide inflammation, which aspirin is thought to counteract.
Aspirin also appeared to reduce CRP levels in the high-CRP group when those levels were checked at weeks 8, 20, and 36 of pregnancy.
While the results are promising, further research is needed to confirm the findings and to learn more about how inflammation affects getting pregnant and maintaining a pregnancy, the researchers concluded.
The research was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.
Read more: https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/2967890/Preconception-low-dose-aspirin-restores-diminished
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