Improving science and care for early pregnancy loss
Penn Medicine’s Courtney Schreiber has challenged the status quo of care through research and found peace for the unseen women undergoing first-trimester miscarriage.
2 min. read
Courtney Schreiberstarted noticing that her patients kept coming back. For a clinician at Penn Medicine who treats women in the process of losing a pregnancy, it was not a good sign. They were receiving the standard medication for miscarriage management. And it was failing. At the same time that many of these patients already were going through emotional distress at the loss of a wished-for pregnancy, their physical suffering was prolonged even after the standard treatment. Patients were returning, having gone through bleeding and discomfort to no avail, their miscarriages still not complete. “I remember thinking, ‘This is it,’” Schreiber says. “I will no longer give a treatment that doesn’t work to a person who needs help.’”
That observation prompted Schreiber to circle back to an additional drug she had studied during her medical training. The prevailing wisdom at the time was that the second medication wasn’t necessary to treat early pregnancy loss; it wouldn’t help. Based on her initial results, Schreiber thought it deserved another look.
The research that followed not only changed U.S. and international guidelines for the medical treatment of miscarriage but led to an entirely new clinical model of care for early pregnancy loss. And it contributed to Schreiber being named as the 2026 winner of the BioInnovation Institute & Science Translational Medicine Prize for Innovations in Women’s Health. The award honors researchers who have made significant advances with the potential to impact women’s health across the globe. Schreiber is a professor and chief of family planning in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Perelman School of Medicine.
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