I have a history of two previous premature births (27 weeks and 33 weeks, respectively) and was discharged today from a 36-hour hospital stay where I had threatened preterm labor, but was able to come home still pregnant. I’m sure there aren’t enough women with histories exactly like mine to compare to, but in general is there data available on the percentage of births by number of days/weeks between threatened preterm labor and actual delivery?
—Katie
Preterm labor is when you have labor and it is preterm (how’s that for an easy definition?). Labor is defined as regular uterine contractions plus cervical change (going from closed to 2 centimeters dilated, for example). Preterm is less than 37 weeks. “Threatened” preterm labor means someone has some of those features but not all of them. For example, someone has contractions preterm, but her cervix is not changing. This is sometimes confused with “arrested” preterm labor, which means someone actually had preterm labor but it stopped, either on its own or due to some intervention.
Most people with threatened preterm labor will not deliver preterm. The exact number depends on the exact circumstances (your history, how far pregnant you are, how often you are contracting, what your cervical length is on ultrasound, what your fetal fibronectin results are, to name a few). So I may see someone with threatened preterm labor with a 10% to 20% chance of delivering preterm (the population risk is 10%, so saying someone has a 10% risk means they are no worse or better than anyone else), and I may see someone else with a 50% to 75% risk, but that happens less often. Interestingly, most people with arrested preterm labor also won’t deliver preterm. Many of the same variables listed above apply there as well.
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