Age at menarche and unsuccessful pregnancy outcome

We have examined the relation between age at menarche and unsuccessful pregnancy outcome among women under 40 years of age. Women with early menarche (under 12) and late menarche (14 or older) had a greater number of unsuccessful pregnancy outcomes than did women of intermediate age at menarche (12 or 13 years). The differences in means adjusted by covariance analysis for age, total number of pregnancies, age at first live birth and socio-economic status were statistically significant. Among Catholic women, who were unlikely to have had induced abortions at the time of the study, the differences by menarcheal age were greater than among non-Catholic women. These findings support those of Liestøl (1980) who recently reported a possible causal connection between menarcheal age and spontaneous abortion.