What does 2.4 cm mean?

As I mentioned earlier, when we spent the afternoon in Labor & Delivery on Tuesday, I was frustrated by the fact that the doctors didn't really tell us much about the implications of having a 1 cm cervix. Since then, I have been poring over the medical literature with little success, but did find reference to one study here. According to that, women with a cervix <1 cm at 22-30 weeks have a mean birth gestational age of 32 weeks. In other words, not so good. In contrast, if you have a cervix <2.5 cm, the mean birth gestational age goes up to 36.5, or almost full-term. Again, all this needs to be taken with a grain of salt, because we're not totally sure today's measurement was accurate, and even if it was, there are certainly women with a 2.5 cm cervix who don't make it to 36.5 weeks. But it was certainly heartening to read that.

It makes me feel especially good, because one of the scariest things about the news they had given us on Tuesday was knowing that short cervix is something that is likely to be a problem in subsequent pregnancies. So, not only was I worried that we would lose this baby, I was scared that we would never be able to have a full-term pregnancy. And again, that fear is not completely gone, but it is much less than it was.