What is your experience with the removal of a circlage and actual vaginal birth?

[courtenay_e]

Have a potential client who contacted me today looking for a doula. She birthed her last baby at 23wks gestation (baby is now 16 months). She's 22 weeks now, and at 12 weeks the OB placed a circlage on the cervix. She's ALSO been labled gestational diabetic, and they are planning to induce at 37 wks, assuming she gets that far. I'm thinking this is a recipe for c-section, as not only will they be inducing well before the due date, but with a possibly scarred cervix. The only times I've heard anything about the removal of a circlage(and there was the same outcome for two seperate births), there was scarring on the cervix, labor didn't progress, and the moms ended up having c-sections. Please, can you suggest resources that I might access, so that I can help her figure out what the possibilities might be as far as her labor and birth go? What are your experiences? Are there many successful vaginal births after the placement of a circlage? Were the stories I heard just outside the normal curve, or is it fairly commonplace? Thanks for any help you might give me!

[zoe398]

Don't know enough about it, but a fellow doula had a client recently who had the cerclage removed at 36 weeks and went into labor almost immediately and birthed the babe vaginally.

[courtenay_e]

Thanks! There's hope.

[memiles]

I know someone with about the same experience, circlage was removed and labor started within hours to days, and baby was born vaginally. I would think that if the circlage was actually doing it's job and holding the cervix closed, that the cervix would also open easily once it's removed.