Cervical Dystocia

Definition : Cervical dystocia: Difficult labor and delivery caused by mechanical obstruction at the cervix. Dystocia comes from the Greek "dys" meaning "difficult, painful, disordered, abnormal" + "tokos" meaning "birth." The term dystocia means difficult labour (childbirth). During labour, there are numerous factors that could be responsible for dystocia including in-coordinate uterine activity, abnormal foetal lie or presentation or absolute or relative cephalopelvic disproportion. Foetal lie is defined as the relationship between the long axis of the foetus and the long axis of the maternal spine; a longitudinal lie is the normal. Dystocia is associated with abnormal foetal lie such as a transverse lie. Cephalopelvic disproportion is said to occur when there is a large foetal head in the presence of a much smaller maternal pelvis.

Types of dystocia: There are two specific types of dystocia cervical dystocia and shoulder dystocia. Cervical dystocia is defined as difficulty in labour resulting from failure of the cervix to dilate. shoulder dystocia associated risk factors as well as complications. Signs and symptoms: Causes: Diagnostics evaluation: Medical management: Nursing intervention: