Quantitative foetal fibronectin as a predictor of successful induction of labour in post-date pregnancies

Objective: To study the relationship between induced labour, quantitative levels of fibronectin and the Bishop score. Study design: Vaginal fibronectin/Bishop score were estimated in 33 nulliparous women undergoing induction of labour for post-dates at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospital London. Results: There was no significant relationship between either the fibronectin level or Bishop score and the duration of the latent phase (R-2 = 0.001; P = 0.86 and R-2 = 0.12; P = 0.08, respectively). There was no relationship between the total prostaglandin dose and fibronectin level (R-2 = 0.03; P = 0.39) nor any significant correlation between either the Bishop score or fibronectin level and the induction to delivery time (R-2 = 0.13; P = 0.11 and R-2 = 0.0006; P = 0.97, respectively). Significant relationships were observed inversely between the total prostin dose and Bishop score (R-2 = 0.33, P = 0.002), between the total prostin dose and latent phase (R-2 = 0.54; P = 0.000009) and between Bishop score and the fibronectin levels (R-2 = 0.19; P <0.01). Conclusions: Quantitative foetal fibronectin is not a useful test for inducibility at term. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.