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Jobs that require pregnant women to bend over could be increasing their risk of miscarriage, a new study says.

Miscarriage risk increases by 36% for every hour a pregnant woman spends working while bent forward, researchers reported recently in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

These jobs included waitressing, farm work, gardening and trade work, researchers said.

Jobs that required lots of walking also increased the risk of pregnancy loss by 18% for every hour a woman spent walking, researchers added.

"Losing a pregnancy is devastating for a woman, so if there is anything we can do to help prevent it, it is important that workplaces are aware of how the risk may be reduced," senior researcher Luise Mølenberg Begtrup said in a news release. She is a clinical associate professor of public health at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

For the study, researchers analyzed 800,000 pregnancies among 475,000 women from 2004 to 2018.

They linked that data to occupational posture measurements from more than 400 women who wore sensors on their backs and thighs while working. The sensors tracked how much time women spent standing, walking and bending forward across 100 different jobs.

Results showed that forward-bending work posed the greatest hazard for a pregnancy, followed by walking and standing work.

Walking was linked to an 18% higher miscarriage risk, and each hour of standing work was associated with a 3% increased risk of pregnancy loss.

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