Entry Date:
December 9, 2015

Preterm Birth


Ascending infection from the colonized vagina to the normally sterile intrauterine cavity is a well-documented cause of pre-term birth. The dense and protective mucus plug in the cervical canal is the primary barrier to microbial ascension. We developed a facile means to measure mucus "spinnbarkeit", the complex non-Newtonian rheological properties of mucus and used this approach to show a robust relationship between spinnbarkeit and pre-term birth. Ongoing studies focus on clinical translation of these observations into prospective studies for prediction of preterm birth risk, and development of mucus-modulating therapies for a range of reproductive disorders.