Epidemiologists at the University of California, Davis, suggest that stress from long work hours can triple the risk of miscarriage. After questioning 584 female lawyers about their domestic and professional lives, the researchers could establish a clear link between the long hours of work and the chances of miscarriage in the first three months of pregnancy. Women who worked for more than 45 hours a week were five times as prone to stress, and thrice as likely to suffer an early miscarriage, as those who worked for less than 35 hours ( New Scientist , Vol 154, No 2085).