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My OBGYN said they’ll start doing routine cervical checks around 36 weeks, but my doula told me it’s best to decline all cervical checks until week 41. Who should I listen to? Is the risk of infection really that high?
—Differing Recommendations
Routine cervical checks are common, so your OB’s recommendation is not unusual, but your doula has a reasonable point.
The primary concern with cervical checks is the possibility that they might induce your water to break prematurely, which could increase the risk of infection. There are a couple of very small randomized trials from the mid-1980s and early 1990s on this. In one paper, researchers found cervical checks raised this risk, but in the other, they did not. This literature is old, and the samples are small, so it’s not clear how much we should learn from it.
However, there isn’t really any reason to have these checks before labor, assuming pregnancy is progressing normally. You can be 4 cm dilated for weeks without going into labor, or you can go from zero to delivery in hours. The cervix isn’t a crystal ball; it only tells you what’s happening at that exact moment, not when labor will start or how it will progress.
The point is that this is an intervention that could have some risk and doesn’t have any benefit, which probably means you should skip it. Most OBs are fine with this — a simple “I’d prefer not to have that done” should be sufficient.
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