Publication:

Microbiological study of cervical flora in preterm labour

Background Preterm labour occurs due to various causative factors. Genital infections contribute significantly to the preterm labour. Ours is a prospective, observational study looking at the cervical microbiota involved in the preterm labour. The cervical flora contributing to the occurrence of preterm labour was studied. The results were analyzed based on the microbiological study of cervical swabs. The primary objectives of this study were to determine the association of cervical microbiota of pregnant women with spontaneous preterm delivery. To characterize the effect of cervical microbiota on birth gestation. The secondary objective of this study was to analyse the role of cervical microbiota and its relationship between social and behavioural factors.

Methods It is a prospective, observational study, which includes 193 patients, studied over a period of one and a half year. It was conducted at our tertiary care centre after the approval by ethics committee, and the results were analysed. As this is a purely observational study, management decisions of treating obstetrician were not interfered with. No additional cost, intervention or injury was caused to the study subject.

Results In our study, cervical swab culture shows growth in 2.07% which is statistically insignificant. Though, it was found that preterm labour is more common with leucocytosis, i.e. WBC > 11000 cmm, which is found to be statistically significant (p value = 0.023).

Conclusions In our study, we found that there was no significant association of cervical flora with preterm labour, though we found an association with leucocytosis.