Abstract
Spontaneous abortion is the major route by which natural selection operates in man with estimated pre-natal losses of fertilised ova based on human and animal data of at least fifty per cent.(1.2) The majority of these losses occur within the first few weeks of pregnancy and are the result of inherent defects within the conceptus, the most familiar being karyotypic abnormalities.(3) The latter may be considered as the extreme end of the spectrum of natural variation which in moresubtle forms plays an essential role in evolution. As such it is logical to anticipate that, concurrent with these natural experiments, a process will have evolved thatpermits the early elimination of these abnormal conceptuses and return of the maternal organism to a fertile state.
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© 1988 The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
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Rushton, D.I. (1988). Placental pathology in spontaneous miscarriage. In: Sharp, F., Beard, R.W. (eds) Early Pregnancy Loss. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1658-5_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-1658-5_16
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