This article claims that up to 400 women a year may have been wrongly advised they have miscarried in the early stages of pregnancy. Because home pregnancy kits are now so sensitive women are now attending hospital at a much earlier stage in their pregnancy. The article claims that hospital scans cannot always pick up a heartbeat at these early stages causing some women to be mistakenly told they have miscarried.
As a result of this new guidelines are now urging doctors not to operate to remove a foetus in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy saying instead that women should be advised they may still be carrying a healthy baby even if a scan have not detected any positive signs. I suppose part of the problem is people requesting early scans, generally in a normal pregnancy your first scan would be at the 12-13 week mark but that is a long time to wait to find out if the pregnancy is viable particularly if you have lost a baby in the past.