Objective: The objective of our study was to check if presence of fetal fibronectin in the cervical secretion of full term patient predicts accurately the onset of labour at term.
Study design: 78 women in the term period were included in the study, serial samples for fetal fibronectin were assessed, each patient underwent spontaneous labour, delay between last sample and delivery were analysed.
Results: Patient with positive fetal fibronectin delivered within 3 +/- 1.9 days where as patient with negative fetal fibronectin delivered within 5.7 +/- 3.9 days (P = 0.01).
Conclusion: Presence of fetal fibronectin in cervical secretions seems to be a powerful tool to predict in a short delay the onset of labour at term, it should be used in conjunction with clinical and fetal assessment data.