The Pros and Cons of Cervical Checks
By Sara French, ACSM CPT, NASM CNC
November 15, 2024
Routine cervical checks are often started toward the end of pregnancy, around week 36 or 37 of gestation. Your healthcare provider will perform a physical exam of your cervix in order to assess how “ready” your body is for labor. There are some pros and cons to these routine exams, which is what will be discussed in this article.
The Pros of Cervical Checks
Cervical checks, both before and during labor, can provide answers to a number of questions. As you approach the final weeks of pregnancy, your body should be preparing itself for labor. Having a cervical check will tell you how dilated and effaced your cervix is at that moment. Your doctor may even use this as a tool to determine whether or not she believes you are in active labor. Dilation refers to how open the cervix is and is measured in centimeters. Effacement refers to the thinness of the cervix and is measured as a percentage. If you are 10 cm dilated and 100% effaced, your body is completely ready for your baby to move through that birth canal! If you have been induced, your doctor will perform cervical checks to monitor the progression and effectiveness of the induction method. Healthcare providers may even use these exams to assess the general health of your cervix toward the end of pregnancy. You can also request to have a cervical check out of pure curiosity! Some women like to have as much information as they can going into labor. Although there are several benefits to cervical checks, there are also some drawbacks that need to be discussed.
The Cons of Cervical Checks
If no one prepared you already, let me be the first to share that cervical checks can be quite uncomfortable! Women who experienced pelvic floor pain during their pregnancy have even described them as downright painful. They can even increase the risk of infection in the pregnant mom. We discussed dilation and effacement earlier, and how your doctor uses cervical checks to assess how progressed you are in labor. However, it gets tricky because every woman is different! For example, one woman might be four centimeters dilated for several weeks before progressing any further. A different woman might go from four centimeters dilated to ten centimeters dilated in a matter of hours! Because of this, using cervical checks as a prediction for when a woman will go into labor is extremely inaccurate. If your healthcare provider solely uses cervical checks as a marker of labor, this could lead to unnecessary interventions. Luckily, there are some other ways to tell how progressed your labor is, such as how vocal you are, how focused you are, and how intense your contractions are.
Please remember that you have the right to refuse any medical procedure, and that includes cervical checks. If you would feel more comfortable allowing labor to progress on its own time, you have permission to decline the cervical checks. Know that you have options and can make informed decisions about your body. It’s up to you, momma! You know what is best for you and your baby.
Sources
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5503468/#:~:text=Careful%20read%20of%20the%20original,178)