Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-8v9h9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-21T18:23:35.082Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 20 - Prevention of Preterm Birth in Multiple Pregnancies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2022

Leanne Bricker
Affiliation:
Corniche Hospital, Abu Dhabi
Julian N. Robinson
Affiliation:
Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston
Baskaran Thilaganathan
Affiliation:
St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London
Get access

Summary

Arguably the most common cause of perinatal mortality and morbidity in multiple gestation is spontaneous preterm labour and delivery. A number of interventions have been evaluated in preventing spontaneous preterm birth in this this context, namely, bed rest (with or without hospitalization), oral tocolytics, home uterine activity monitoring, use of progesterone, cervical cerclage and cervical pessary. Most of the research is in this area relates to twin pregnancy with very little dedicated to triplet and higher order pregnancies. There are conflicting results but in the main, sadly, an effective primary preventative intervention remains elusive. This chapter will summarise what we know about the efficacy of the aforementioned interventions and highlight some specific scenarios where intervention may be beneficial.

Information

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×