Test of cervical mucus may reveal pregnant women’s risk of going into labour too early




Currently there is no reliable way to predict whether a woman with a normal pregnancy will go into labour before 37 weeks. However, a study from MIT offers a new approach to evaluating this risk, by analysing the properties of cervical mucus. The researchers found that cervical mucus from women who delivered their babies before 37 weeks was very different from that of women who delivered later.


“Our prediction is that we might be able to identify risk for preterm birth ahead of time, before labour sets in,” says Katharina Ribbeck, an associate professor of biological engineering at MIT and the senior author of the study. “Diagnostic tools for this are missing.”


Ribbeck’s lab at MIT investigates the distinctive chemical and mechanical properties of mucus, and how those properties help it to perform many critical roles as part of the body’s first line of defence against infection.

Several years ago, Ribbeck began exploring whether changes in cervical mucus might play a role in preterm births. Between 25 and 40 per cent of early births are believed to be caused by infections that occur when microbes reach the uterus through the cervical plug, which is made of mucus and normally blocks access to the uterus.

In a study published in 2013, Ribbeck found that cervical mucus from pregnant women at high risk of early labour was mechanically weaker and more elastic than that of low-risk pregnant women.

For the new study, she and her colleagues decided to investigate the mucus’s permeability to small particles. Mucus is formed from polymers known as mucins, and the composition and arrangement of these mucins determine how porous the gel is.


The researchers tested the ability of negatively charged spheres about 1 micron in diameter to travel through the mucus, and found a small but statistically insignificant difference in porosity between the high- and low-risk samples. They then decided to do the same test with charged peptide probes, which are small enough to avoid getting stuck in the mucus network but are sensitive to the biochemical modifications of the mucus. With these peptide probes, the researchers found a significant differences in mucus permeability and adhesiveness: The peptides were able to pass through samples from high-risk women much more easily.



She suspects that this loss of adhesion might be caused by changes in molecular structure of the mucins, in particular, changes in the number and types of sugar molecules that comprise part of their structure.

Currently, the most common way to try to predict the risk of preterm birth is to measure the length of the cervix, but although a shortened cervix is correlated with higher risk, there are also many cases where a shortened cervix does not lead to preterm birth. Another test involves measuring levels of feotal fibronectin, a material that essentially “glues” the feotal membranes to the uterine wall, in vaginal secretions. However, this is not a completely reliable predictor, and furthermore, women can deliver preterm when both cervical length and feotal fibronectin are normal.

“There’s no currently well-accepted universal test,” says Smith-Dupont. “The pathophysiology and mechanisms of preterm birth are extremely complex, and what works to assess one patient may not work for another.”

Ribbeck anticipates that cervical mucus testing could be done early in pregnancy, as part of a routine screen that would reveal whether a woman was at high risk of preterm birth. (This test would determine risk from infection, but not from other potential causes of early labor.)

Through studies of the chemical composition of the altered mucus, Ribbeck also hopes to develop new ways to restore the normal function of the mucus. “If the mucus is thinner or less adhesive than it naturally is, then we can begin to think about factors to add so that we improve its barrier properties,” she says.

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Reference: K. B. Smith-Dupont, C. E. Wagner, J. Witten, K. Conroy, H. Rudoltz, K. Pagidas, V. Snegovskikh, M. House, K. Ribbeck. Probing the potential of mucus permeability to signify preterm birth riskScientific Reports, 2017; 7 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-08057-z

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