Cervical Stitches, Bacterial Growth Lead To Stillbirths, Preterm Births

Pregnancy which requires a cervical stitch that uses a braided thread to prevent preterm labor may cause stillbirths and preterm births according to researchers. Researchers say that the most commonly used suture, a braided thread, was associated with triples odds of stillbirths compared to a single strand suture. It is also found that the risk for preterm births was doubled.

A professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Imperial College London, Dr. Phillip Bennett, revealed they do not have very good tools to determine who would and would not benefit from cervical stitches. He added that they may have performed cervical stitches on pregnancies when there was actually no need so it is important for them to first do no harm. 80 percent of doctors who perform the procedure use the braided tape material thread and just one in five doctors use the simple nylon thread according to Bennett.

Bennett revealed that the study found significantly poorer outcomes in pregnancies stitched with the braided type material than with the nylon. The study demonstrated that women were more likely to have harmful bacterial growth in the vagina which was associated with changes to the cervix, including inflammation, CBS News reported.

Researchers believe that the tape stitch allows bad bacterial growth in the vagina, which later affects the cervix through activation of inflammation. It is found that in 700 pregnancies that underwent the procedure, five percent was done using the nylon suture while 15 percent was done using the braided shoe lace stitch and had stillbirths. In addition, Bennett said that 27 percent who received the braided tape resulted to preterm births compared with 17 percent of women who got the nylon stitch.

Cervical stitches should be performed using the single nylon thread to give a better long-term result according to the director of maternal-fetal medicine, Dr. James Ducey, at Staten Island University Hospital in New York City. He said that the study confirms that braided sutures cause more inflammation, which they saw among animals.