Cervical Pessary can reduce Preterm Birth Rate

Pregnant women who have a short cervix and used a cervical pessary to keep their cervix closed can reduce preterm birth rate, reveals a new study.

Preterm birth is a major cause of illness, disability and death for infants. A cervical pessary is intended to keep the cervix closed and to change the inclination of the cervical canal but the results of randomized clinical trials have been contradictory.

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‘Preterm births can be reduced in women who have a short cervix with the usage of a cervical pessary.’

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About 300 women with a short cervix and without a history of sudden preterm births; the clinical trial was conducted from 2016-2017.

Half of the woman had a cervical pessary inserted and half did not (intervention); spontaneous preterm birth at less than 34 weeks of gestation (outcome).

This was a randomized clinical trial. Randomized clinical trials (RCTs) allow for the strongest inferences to be made about the true effect of an intervention. However, not all RCT results can be replicated in real-world settings because patient characteristics or other variables may differ from those that were studied in the RCT.

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The authors of this study were Gabriele Saccone, M.D., University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy and coauthors.

The results of this showed that women who used a cervical pessary had a lower rate of spontaneous preterm birth.

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The study limitations in this trial was that it was conducted at one facility and that raises questions about the generalization of its findings.

Women with a short cervix and without a history of spontaneous preterm birth who used a cervical pessary had a lower rate of spontaneous preterm birth compared with women who did not use the device. The results must be confirmed in multicenter clinical trials.

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Source-Eurekalert