DOI: 10.36347/sjams.2016.v04i01.027

Pages: 146-151

This study was undertaken to evaluate the cervical length ultrasonographically at 18 to 24 weeks of gestation in asymptomatic women and predicting risk of preterm labour and delivery. A hospital based prospective study was conducted by enrolling 550 antenatal patients with gestations between 18 and 24 weeks & their cervical length were measured by USG and were followed through their pregnancy, labour and delivery. All the relevant data were recorded, studied & statistically analysed. 40 patients were lost to follow up. Therefore, all the result analyses were done for 510 patients. Majority of the patients belonged to age group 21- 30 years (58.43 %), primigravida (43.00 %), from urban background (68.03 %) , belonged to lower socio-economic status (52.9 %), at 21 weeks of gestation (30.78 %). 338 patients had labour at term (66.29 %), 137 (26.90 %) had preterm & 35 (6.81 %) had post-term labour. With cervical length < 1.5 cm, all 5 patients went into preterm labour (100 %), cervical length 1.5-2.0 cm, 33 patients(94.28 %) went into preterm labour, 2.1-2.5 cm cervical length 51 patients (67.10 %) went into preterm labour, 2.6-3.0 cm 17 patients(15.17% ) patients went into preterm labour & in those patients with cervical length > 3.0 cm, 31 (10.99 %) landed up in preterm labour. When statistically analysed, the association between cervical length and gestational age at which labour started was found to be very significant and results showed ᵡ2 =190.01, df= 1, P< 0.0001. (Very significant). As the cervical length increases, the median gestational age at which labour started also increases which was found to be significant .(r = 0.98, P< 0.01). Patients with shorter cervices had shorter gestations and went into labour early. Thus ultrasonographic measurement of cervical length at 18-24 weeks of gestation can be utilized as a tool for predicting adverse pregnancy outcome especially preterm labour and delivery.