Miscarriage happens when a pregnancy stops growing. Eventually, the pregnancy tissue will pass out of the body. Some women will feel crampy, period-like pain and in most cases there will be vaginal bleeding.
Miscarriage is very common in the first few weeks of pregnancy. Studies show that up to one in five women, who know they are pregnant, will have a miscarriage before 20 weeks. Mostly this will happen in the first 12 weeks. The actual rate of miscarriage is even higher because some women have very early miscarriages without ever realising that they were pregnant.