Association Between Cervical Length At 18-23 Weeks Of Gestation And Spontaneous Preterm Delivery – A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract

Background and objective Cervical length, as measured by transvaginal ultrasonography, has been shown to predict preterm birth. This study was aimed to find the association between cervical length at 18 to 23 weeks of gestation, done during routine anomaly scan and spontaneous preterm delivery. Methodology This one year cross-sectional study was carried out in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, KLE’S Dr. Prabhakar Kore Hospital and Medical Research Centre, Belgaum. A total of 205 women who fulfilled the selection criteria from January 2012 to December 2012 were studied. Cervical assessment with transvaginal ultrasound for the measurement of cervical length and diameter of internal os was performed using a Philips HD 11 ultrasound machine and a vaginal probe of 8 MHz. Results More than half (54.15%) of the women were aged between 21 to 25 years and the mean maternal age of the study population was 23.26 ± 3.49 years. Most of the women (52.20%) were primigravidas. Majority (76.59%) of the women were enrolled between 20 to 21 weeks gestation and the mean gestation at enrolment was 20.72 ± 1.00 weeks. 32.68% of the women had cervical length between 26 to 30 mm and cervical length of ≤ 25 was present in 4.88% of women. Majority that is, 89.27% were term babies while 10.73% were preterm babies. Of the 22 preterm babies, significantly higher number of babies (59.09%) were born to mothers with cervical length ≤ 30 mm (p=0.027). Similarly the mean cervical length of women who had preterm labour was significantly less compared those who had term labour (29.64 ± 8.73 mm versus 34.16 ± 5.72 mm; p=0.002). Of the 10 women with cervical length ≤ 25 mm 50% had preterm labour (p=0.003). Conclusion The present study showed strong association between short cervical length and spontaneous preterm delivery.