delivery within two weeks?!?!?!

i had a really bad nite tuesday. contractions three minutes apart, baby had dropped, etc. not good. toughed it out. called my ob the first thing yesterday thinking he'd have me come in and instead sent me to the hospital. got there, contractions were basically non existent, urine was good, and cervix was closed although soft and short. they did a swab for a fFn test. i got dressed while we waited on the results because the smell of the gown was so sickening. i laid down on the gurney and dozed off. the midwife came in and told us the test came back positive. wow! i've had the test done several times w/ all the kids and never got a positive. ok. soooo, they hooked me back up, contractions were weak but more frequent. they switched my meds back to procardia every 6 hrs and i'm only allowed up to go to the bathroom. wow. i'm still just about two months away from my due date......i've had the steroids for baby's lung development but s/he would still probably have low birth weight and i don't want to have to visit my baby in the nicu for weeks. so keep us in your good thoughts.


Fetal fibronectin (fFN) is a protein produced by fetal cells and a type of fibronectin. fFN is found at the interface of the chorion and the decidua (between the fetal sack and the uterine lining).

It can be thought of as an adhesive or "biological glue" that binds the fetal sack to the uterine lining.

Diagnosic test

Fetal fibronectin "leaks" into the vagina if a preterm delivery is likely to occur and can be measured in a diagnostic test.[1]

It is an excellent biological marker of premature (preterm) delivery; a delivery before 37 weeks of gestation.

When the fFN test is considered positive, delivery is likely to occur soon. When the fFN test is negative, it means that there is little if any danger of preterm labour for 7-10 days. The test is easily performed. A specimen is collected from the patient using a vaginal swab. The swab is placed in a transport tube and sent to the lab for testing. The lab can easily produce a test result in less than one hour.

A systematic review of the medical literature found that fetal fibronectin is a good predictor of spontaneous preterm birth before cervical dilation.[2] The test may be run on patients between 22 and 35 weeks gestation.

A negative fetal fibronectin test gives a more than 95% likelihood of remaining undelivered for the next 2 weeks. On the other hand, a positive fetal fibronectin test indicates a higher risk of preterm delivery (61% of delivery before 34 weeks)[3]. So, the fetal fibronectin test can't tell you for sure that you are in labor, but it can tell you that you're not.