However, the barrier mechanisms preventing ascending intrauterine infection are poorly understood. Taken together, these studies suggest that intrauterine infection occurs because the barrier to ascending infection is impaired. In addition to infection, preterm birth is also associated with a robust inflammatory response in the amniotic fluid and cervical mucus. Common vaginal organisms, including genital ureaplasmas and mycoplasmas as well as gram positive and gram negative bacteria, are commonly found in amniotic fluid cultures of preterm birth patients. The pathophysiology most commonly linked to preterm birth is bacterial invasion from the colonized vagina to the sterile uterine cavity вЂ“. Preterm infants that survive the newborn period are at increased risk for long-term health complications including neurodevelopmental disability, decreased growth, chronic lung disease and cardiovascular morbidity вЂ“. Preterm birth is the leading cause of newborn mortalityвЂ“more than half of all infant deaths in the United States occur to infants born prior to 32 weeks gestation. Preterm birth, or birth prior to 37 weeks of gestation, affects over 12% of pregnancies in the United States and leads to $26 billion in annual healthcare costs. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Д¬ompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. AJ is funded by NASA Microgravity Fluid Sciences (Code UG, grant no. OL was supported through a postdoc fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). RSF is supported through the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program. Additional support came from the Reproductive Scientist Development Program (NIH grant #2K12HD000849-25) and the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation to MH. Reed Faculty Initiative Funds, and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Preterm Birth Research Grant to KR. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.ДЇunding: This project was funded in part by MIT startup, the Charles E.

Received: MaAccepted: JPublished: August 1, 2013Д¬opyright: В© 2013 Critchfield et al. PLoS ONE 8(8):Д®ditor: Tamas Zakar, John Hunter Hospital, Australia (2013) Cervical Mucus Properties Stratify Risk for Preterm Birth.

Citation: Critchfield AS, Yao G, Jaishankar A, Friedlander RS, Lieleg O, Doyle PS, et al.

Mucus plug color chart