Miscarriage at Two or Three Months of Pregnancy, Every Time — How Doctor Wu Jutong Secured the Fetus with His Great Nourishing Paste (Zhuan Xi Da Sheng Gao) of Blood-and-Flesh Tonics
Patient search terms: miscarriage at two or three months of pregnancy / can’t keep a pregnancy / repeated miscarriage / early pregnancy loss / habitual miscarriage / cold hands and feet / fever at night Medical terms: habitual miscarriage (hua tai) · recurrent miscarriage · liver-kidney yin deficiency · liver deficiency with heat · lower burner deficiency-cold · yin deficiency with internal heat
The opening: three months of pregnancy, a wall she could never get past
There was once a 28-year-old woman, Madam Fan. She married, she conceived — this should have been the happiest waiting of her life. But every single time, the baby was lost right at the third month of pregnancy. Once, twice, three times — three pregnancies in a row, and every one of them ended at three months. Her family’s hopes were raised and shattered, raised and shattered, over and over.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: There are actually a great many patients like this today, and I have always watched this group closely. Across China, every year, the number of women who miscarry at two or three months of pregnancy is enormous — some at two to three months, some at two months. The truth is that many of these women would never have this problem at all if they regulated their bodies with Chinese medicine. But sadly, most people don’t know enough about Chinese medicine — many don’t even know such an approach exists. That is a real pity.
This time, she went to see the great Qing-dynasty physician Doctor Wu Jutong.
Doctor Wu’s diagnosis: liver deficiency with heat — the heat inside was “breaking the blood”
After taking her pulse, Doctor Wu understood at once: this woman miscarried at three months of every pregnancy because of liver deficiency with heat — the liver yin was insufficient, so a deficient heat arose, and when that heat stirred inside the body it “broke the blood and made it run recklessly” (po xue wang xing). With the blood in disorder, the fetus could not be held. The problem was not that the baby was bad — it was that the mother’s “soil” was too hot and too dry.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Doctor Wu first discussed the classical approach. In ancient times, this condition was treated with Sang Ji Sheng Tang (Mulberry Mistletoe Decoction). But he pointed out that the formula contains ginseng — can two or three doses of that really secure a pregnancy? Not necessarily. And ginseng is expensive; many people cannot afford it, and is it really that effective? On top of that, the mulberry mistletoe herb itself is of mixed quality — some of it parasitizes willow trees, and that got mixed into the medicine too — so the results were even less certain. These few remarks were Doctor Wu showing his learning: meaning, my formula costs far more than Sang Ji Sheng Tang — but it genuinely works.
A 24-jin vat of paste: every “blood-and-flesh” tonic pressed into service
How was it treated? Doctor Wu first quoted the Huang Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic) to fix the guiding principle.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The Nei Jing says “the superior physician treats disease before it arises” (shang gong zhi wei bing) — don’t wait until you are sick to treat. If you can regulate the body before pregnancy, that is wonderful. But this woman had already miscarried three times; she could not carry a normal pregnancy, could not have a normal child. What then? Tonify in ordinary times — don’t wait until you are pregnant to start tonifying, by then it is too late. This thinking is completely correct. To treat this kind of illness, Doctor Wu used a big paste formula to be taken in ordinary times — Zhuan Xi Da Sheng Gao (the Great Nourishing Paste of Concentrated Closure). One batch of the medicine weighed a full 24 jin — roughly 14 kilograms! What went into it?
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Ren shen (ginseng), two jin — for those who couldn’t afford it, prepared American ginseng was substituted, and in those days American ginseng was very cheap, far cheaper than ginseng. Shu di huang (prepared rehmannia), three jin — ginseng paired with rehmannia tonifies the qi and supplements the essence. Gou qi zi (wolfberry) supplements the essence, nourishing the essence of the liver and kidneys. Bai shao (white peony) gathers the liver yin. Mu li (oyster shell) nourishes yin and anchors the yang — when liver yin is insufficient and liver fire stirs inside, the heat breaks the blood and the fetus cannot be held; oyster shell is what settles that heat down.
The formula also contained: fu ling (poria); hai shen (sea cucumber); mai dong (ophiopogon) to nourish yin; wu gu ji (black-boned chicken), one male and one female pair; bao yu (abalone) to nourish yin; gui ban (tortoise plastron) to nourish yin and anchor the yang; bie jia (soft-shell turtle shell) to clear deficient heat and also unblock the collaterals; zhu ji sui (pig spinal cord) — marrow to supplement marrow, tonifying the kidney essence; lian zi (lotus seed) from Hunan to strengthen the spleen; yang yao zi (goat kidney) to tonify the kidneys; qian shi (euryale seed) to tonify the kidneys and spleen and also astringe; e jiao (ass-hide gelatin) to nourish the blood; ji zi huang (egg yolk, with the white removed) to nourish yin; and bai mi (white honey) to bring the whole thing into a paste.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This one batch of 24 jin cost more than Sang Ji Sheng Tang by an incalculable margin. The crucial thing is these blood-and-flesh tonics (xue rou you qing zhi pin) — sea cucumber, abalone, black-boned chicken, goat kidney, pig spinal cord — all animal products, all things with feeling and sentience, and these are what tonify most deeply. The ancients were extremely particular about making this paste: the medicine was divided among four copper pots — never iron vessels — and stirred with a copper ladle: “the sentient return to the sentient” — the animal ingredients with the animal ingredients, the herbs with the herbs. It was simmered over a slow fire for three full days and nights, the dregs strained out, then simmered another six days and nights, slowly concentrating into one vat of paste; then fu ling, bai shao, lian zi and qian shi were ground to a fine powder and stirred in, and the whole mass was formed into pills. Each dose was about two qian (roughly 6 grams), taken three times a day, morning, noon and evening — about one liang (30 grams) a day — and one batch of 24 jin lasted a whole year.
And if the woman miscarried at the third month of every pregnancy and was truly of the liver-deficiency-with-heat pattern, one more thing was added: tian dong (asparagus root), one jin, worked into the paste, plus lu rong (young deer antler), two liang, ground to powder and mixed in.
The secret hidden in the name: why “Zhuan Xi Da Sheng”?
Doctor Wu also wrote a long treatise on the formula, explaining why it was named “Zhuan Xi Da Sheng” — and the whole explanation runs on the philosophy of the I Ching (Book of Changes).
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: He said: this formula is built on “yin is born in eight and carried by seven” — seven times three is twenty-one, an odd number, and an odd-count formula leads with yin. Formulas that tonify yang, on the other hand, are built on “yang is born in seven and carried by eight” — three times eight is twenty-four, an even-count formula. One odd, one even — the ancients held that yin and yang protect life and protect the root, and even the number of ingredients was meaningful: yang tonics use odd counts, yin tonics use even counts, and the classical convention for comprehensive formulas favored even numbers. The Qian hexagram “moves straightforwardly and is still in its concentration”; the Kun hexagram “opens as it moves and closes in its stillness (qi jing ye xi)”. The two characters “Zhuan Xi” (concentrated closure) are taken from these two hexagrams, expressing “use stillness to control motion” — the formula is made precisely for the condition of yang hyperactivity with yin decline: when yang qi floats up and stirs restlessly, a decline in yin can also cause agitation, so the two must be brought back into harmony. You can tell from this discussion that Doctor Wu was well schooled in the I Ching — the classical scholars of his day all had deep foundations in it.
The formula treats specifically the pattern of yin deficiency while yang is not yet damaged: it gathers the soft, yin-nourishing herbs of the three yin channels, half of them blood-and-flesh tonics. The sea cucumber, for instance, can creep and move — it is not a stiff, lifeless thing, but moves with great suppleness — and it nourishes yin most effectively, able to “receive its vital life force” (jie qi sheng qi), supplementing the kidney yin.
After the first batch: she carried to eight months — and still lost it
Madam Fan took the medicine faithfully for a year, finished all 24 jin of Zhuan Xi Da Sheng Gao, and conceived again. This time she carried far longer — to the 240th day, eight months of pregnancy — and then… she miscarried again.
When Doctor Wu heard the news, he was overwhelmed with shame: “I am deeply ashamed, and think my formula was not well made” (yu shen can kui, zi yi wei zhi zhi bu shan ye) — he believed he had failed to prepare the medicine properly and had not treated it to the root.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: At this point the patient’s husband came to report, and what he said made Doctor Wu pause. He said: Sir, this time is different! In the past, when she miscarried, it “slipped away without her even noticing” — it was gone in an instant. But this time it was like giving birth — an agonizing, laborious ordeal. She carried to eight months before the baby came, and by then the fetus was already large — this plainly shows the medicine’s power had arrived, only the power was not yet sufficient, not yet tonified down to the root. Before, she slipped at three months; now she held to eight months — it means the fetus had been securely held for a long time. The husband begged Doctor Wu: don’t dwell on it, sir — keep tonifying my wife, add more medicine, lift her up through her confinement, and she will certainly give birth for real this time!
80 jin of raw ingredients, 30 jin of finished pills: four or five children in a row, not one lost
Moved by that trust, Doctor Wu followed the formula and increased the dosage: 80 jin of raw ingredients — the original had been only 24 jin! He added 2 jin of young deer antler ground to fine powder and blended into the paste, made it into 30 jin of pills, and had Madam Fan keep taking it.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: After she finished it, this woman went on to give birth four or five times in a row, without a single miscarriage — one after another, every baby held. Look at the thinking: the main thrust was nourishing yin, but there were also two jin of ginseng to tonify qi — both tonifying qi and nourishing yin. Many women who miscarry at two or three months of pregnancy are simply physically deficient — their periods never regulated properly, their bodies grew weaker and weaker, they were worn down by exertion, and their qi and blood were never replenished. The ancients spoke of “menstruation, discharge, pregnancy and childbirth” — the menstrual cycle above all must be regulated, because the body has so many chances to become depleted. Madam Fan’s illness was mended slowly, by steady tonification — not overnight.
Which constitution suits this paste?
Zhuan Xi Da Sheng Gao is not for everyone. It targets the constitution of liver-kidney yin deficiency. How do you tell?
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The tongue is red — that old, dark red, the kind that didn’t become deficient in a day or two. The hands and feet feel hot in the evening, and you want a cool drink to feel comfortable. In the afternoon and evening the body sends out waves of heat — the fire is strong. The stools tend to be dry, the urine dark yellow. These are all signs of kidney essence depletion and yin deficiency with heat, and for these Zhuan Xi Da Sheng Gao works well. But if the main problem is spleen deficiency? Then the formula is Zi Sheng Wan (the Pill of Nourishing Life) — I’ve talked about it before, the formula by Miao Xiyong, made specifically for miscarriage at two or three months of pregnancy, working by strengthening the spleen and stomach: when spleen qi is sufficient there is holding power (gu she neng li), and once it can hold, the fetus can stay. One formula tonifies the liver-kidney yin, the other tonifies the spleen — different roads, each managing its own territory.
A national TCM master’s “hormone-replacement formula”: regulate the body first, then conceive
After telling the classical story, Doctor Luo shared a modern approach he has used all his professional life — the experience of Professor Yan Dexin, one of China’s national masters of Chinese medicine.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Professor Yan Dexin was a famous Shanghai physician, a man of true attainment, who lived to the age of 98. In his day everyone treated nephrotic syndrome with steroid hormones, and the old master asked: does Chinese medicine have no approach of its own? He produced a “hormone-replacement formula” (dai ji su fang) — tonifying the kidneys and supporting the upright qi: zhi he shou wu (prepared fleeceflower root) — you must buy the most expensive kind from Tong Ren Tang pharmacy, because fleeceflower has a slight liver toxicity and Tong Ren Tang’s processing is the cleanest — huai shan yao (Chinese yam), huang qi (astragalus) (you may use the honey-prepared form), tai zi shen (pseudostellaria), gan cao (licorice) and zi he che (human placenta), equal parts, ground into a powder, 1.5 grams per dose, three times a day, taken with boiled water. I have used it for women who miscarry at two or three months of pregnancy, and the results are excellent. The hard part of this formula is the zi he che — the placenta. Tong Ren Tang sells it, but in the old days we went ourselves to the obstetrics hospital and asked healthy new mothers for the placenta that was no longer needed after childbirth, then processed it ourselves: washed it clean in water, boiled it with a little Sichuan pepper, took it out, cut it into strips, steamed it, dried it, and ground it into powder. Now the hospitals have regulations and it’s hard to obtain, but the ancients said it can tonify the prenatal qi (xian tian zhi qi) — and it genuinely can save lives.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: My own younger sister lives in Australia, and she miscarried at two or three months of pregnancy too. How did the Western doctors in Australia explain it? They said: your fetus has a problem, and the body recognizes it and automatically eliminates it — there’s nothing to treat, you just wait. My sister waited and waited until she was nearly 40. When she came back to China she developed chronic nephritis; I regulated her and got her well, then I said: having a child has been so hard for you — let me try regulating that too? So I gave her this formula — the placenta powder I made myself. She kept taking it… and she became pregnant! Now that little niece of mine is very close to me. You see: the body was simply deficient — tonify it, and once the body is well, you can bear children.
The same diagnosis, the opposite treatment: Madam Yu was cold — Tian Gen Yue Ku Gao tonifies both yin and yang
There is another woman in Doctor Wu’s case records, Madam Yu, who also miscarried without fail at the third month. But her treatment ran in exactly the opposite direction from Madam Fan’s.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Madam Fan was yin deficiency with heat — red tongue, rapid pulse, all the signs of deficient heat. This Madam Yu was different: her face was greenish-yellow, she felt cold, her pulse was slow — neither warm nor hot, a whole picture of deficiency-cold; her hands and feet were icy, and her tongue must have been pale and white. For this you must not nourish yin. Doctor Wu used Tian Gen Yue Ku Gao (the Heavenly Root and Moon Cave Paste) — the name also comes from the I Ching: the turn from Qian to Kun, when the first yin line is born, is called the “moon cave” (yue ku); the turn from Kun back toward yang, the return of the first yang line — the Fu hexagram — is called the “heavenly root” (tian gen). It speaks of the transformations of yin and yang and how the two give birth to each other. This formula tonifies both yin and yang, supplementing the lower burner and the eight extraordinary vessels.
Madam Yu took Tian Gen Yue Ku Gao and gave birth to one child — but the baby was born ice-cold and failed to survive. She took the medicine another year and bore another child — the infant was cold again and did not survive. She took it yet another year, and then bore two children in succession — and this time they survived, one boy and one girl.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Look at these two cases: in both, the women still miscarried after taking the medicine — only with improvement over before — and by continuing, they gradually got better. Tonification takes time; it cannot be done in one stroke. These two cases actually demonstrate one and the same truth: when a woman’s body is not well, she will genuinely have problems in childbirth — you must tonify in advance, tonify well, and only conceive after the body is regulated, and then you won’t suffer repeated miscarriages, nor bear children who cannot survive. Medical conditions are better today — if there is bleeding we can take all sorts of measures to protect the pregnancy — but plenty of unhealthy women still give birth to weak children who are always needing treatment whenever they fall ill. So eugenics and good childbearing is a big issue: don’t wait until the bleeding starts to protect the pregnancy — that is already too late; even if you barely hold on to the baby, the child may still have problems.
To every woman reading this: good nourishment matters more than anything
This story of Doctor Wu’s looks like a treatment for miscarriage, but it is really telling one whole principle: a woman’s body must be nurtured.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The ancients had a saying — Qian is the male, Kun is the female. Men are heaven; women are Kun, the great earth, and the earth bears all things. Women are too important to our society: when a woman is healthy, her household flourishes; when a woman is unwell, the household is inevitably full of discomfort. And women are easily wounded — menstruation, discharge, pregnancy, childbirth, plus all the toil — the chances for depletion are too many, so nourishing women is a major subject. The approaches discussed today — Zhuan Xi Da Sheng Gao for tonifying liver-kidney yin, Zi Sheng Wan for the spleen, Tian Gen Yue Ku Gao for both yin and yang, and Professor Yan Dexin’s hormone-replacement formula for supporting the upright qi — their core is to tonify according to your own yin-yang condition, and when you tonify, include some blood-and-flesh tonics so the nourishment can truly penetrate, bringing the eight extraordinary vessels along with it. Even if you are not trying to have a child, if your body is deficient you should still regulate it properly. When the body is well-nourished, you can live joyfully — and that matters more than anything.
What to take away
- Miscarriage at two or three months of pregnancy is very common — and very often treatable with Chinese medicine. Doctor Luo has said for years that a great many of these women would never lose their babies at all if they regulated their bodies first.
- Two different patterns, two different formulas. If the tongue is dark red, the hands and feet hot at night, with dry stools and yellow urine — that is liver-kidney yin deficiency with heat, and the classical answer is Zhuan Xi Da Sheng Gao (a paste built on yin-nourishing herbs plus blood-and-flesh tonics: sea cucumber, abalone, black-boned chicken, goat kidney, pig spinal cord, tortoise plastron, turtle shell, ginseng and prepared rehmannia). If the face is greenish-yellow, the hands and feet icy, the pulse slow — that is deficiency-cold, and Doctor Wu used Tian Gen Yue Ku Gao, which tonifies both yin and yang.
- Tonify before pregnancy, not after. Doctor Wu quoted the Nei Jing: “the superior physician treats disease before it arises.” By the time you are pregnant it may be too late — the classical method was a long course of a nourishing paste taken in ordinary times.
- Real results take time. Madam Fan still miscarried at eight months after the first 24-jin batch — but the pattern had changed from silent slipping away to a hard, labor-like delivery, proof the fetus had been held for a long time. After the doubled course she bore four or five children without a single loss.
- For the spleen-deficiency type, use Zi Sheng Wan (Miao Xiyong’s formula): strong spleen qi gives the body its holding power.
- A modern option: the hormone-replacement formula. Professor Yan Dexin’s powder — prepared fleeceflower root, Chinese yam, astragalus, pseudostellaria, licorice and human placenta, 1.5 g three times a day — tonifies the kidneys and supports the upright qi. Doctor Luo used it (with placenta powder he prepared himself) to help his own sister, who had miscarried repeatedly in Australia, finally carry a healthy child.
- A woman’s body must be nurtured. Menstruation, discharge, pregnancy and childbirth, plus daily toil, deplete the body constantly. Regulate yourself, nourish yourself well — for having children or simply for living — because a well-nourished body is the foundation of a flourishing home.
Compiled from Doctor Luo Dalun’s commentary on Doctor Wu Jutong’s cases; the original cases come from the Wu Jutong Yi An (The Medical Cases of Wu Jutong), c. 1790s–1830s (Qing dynasty).