Miscarriage
On a genogram, a miscarriage is a very small circle at the end of a short line down from the parents’ line, in the row of their children.
Easily confused with
How to read it
Pregnancy losses are drawn in the row of Children, where the Multicultural Family Institute’s sheet lists children in birth order from the oldest on the left. The Institute’s sheet and the 2021 Research in Practice guide both draw a miscarriage as a small circle on a short line, about the size of a dot, and the Institute’s sheet writes the year beside it. The 1980 legend in The Journal of Family Practice drew a spontaneous abortion as a small filled circle. Beside it on both modern sheets, a small X is an abortion, and on the Institute’s sheet a small square with an X through it is a stillbirth.
Also searched as: genogram miscarriage, miscarriage symbol, spontaneous abortion genogram.
This explains what a symbol records on a genogram. Clinicians vary the notation, and a genogram’s own key takes precedence.
Miscarriage in the medical pedigree
The National Society of Genetic Counselors’ pedigree draws a spontaneous abortion (SAB) as a small triangle, with the weeks of gestation written beneath it, and a termination of pregnancy (TOP) as a triangle crossed by a diagonal line. On a genogram the triangle is a Pregnancy, so the same shape means a continuing pregnancy on one diagram and a loss on the other.
Read next
- Next in Genogram symbolsMarriageA marriage is a line down from each partner and across beneath them, joining the two. The year of the marriage is written on the line, as in m 1970.
- The same shape in Blueprint symbolsGrid line bubbleLabels one of the building's grid lines, the reference lines that locate columns and walls.
More genogram symbols
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with circles.
Sources
- Standard Symbols for Genograms, The Multicultural Family Institute (copy on a PBworks course wiki), Page 1
- Using genograms in practice, Practice Tool, Hannah Scott, February 2021, Research in Practice (The Dartington Hall Trust), Figure 3, page 13
- The Genogram, Winifred Jolly, Jack Froom and Melville G. Rosen, The Journal of Family Practice 10, no. 2 (1980): 251–255, The Journal of Family Practice (MDedge archive), Figure 2, Genogram symbols
- Practice resource-focused revision: Standardized pedigree nomenclature update centered on sex and gender inclusivity: A practice resource of the National Society of Genetic Counselors, Robin L. Bennett, Kathryn Steinhaus French, Robert G. Resta and Jehannine Austin, Journal of Genetic Counseling 31 (2022): 1238–1248, National Society of Genetic Counselors (Wiley), Figure 4, Pedigree symbols related to pregnancy, miscarriage, and termination of pregnancy
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
Added .