The lost mucus plug.  You’ve read about it in a book about what to expect during your pregnancy.

You’ve heard it mentioned in a few movies.

You know a woman that had her baby an hour after the plug fell out.

So, you’re diligent and you keep close watch for the passage of your mucus plug.

Here’s why.

“Mucus Plug” may have originally been intended to be a description of a common phenomenon in pregnancy, but it has now morphed into a term that is misused, overused, confusing, anxiety provoking and frankly misleading.

If you’ve never heard of a mucus plug before, it’s the phrase used to describe a collection of thick mucus that accumulates in the cervix and lower uterus during pregnancy, and may come out vaginally within a few hours to several weeks before delivery.

When is makes its appearance, it may mean you are going into labor in 5 minutes or it may mean that you are going to deliver your baby in 2 months.  As an isolated symptom, it’s as meaningless as seeing mucus when you blow your nose.

But, it freaks you out if you don’t know to expect it and if you’ve read somewhere that it is a harbinger for labor.

So, if every pregnant woman, every person who has heard of the phrase mucus plug and every well meaning grandma, friend, co-worker, and random person at Walmart who likes to give unsolicited advice to pregnant women, would collectively set aside this phrase, the world would be a better place.

Or at least pregnancies would have a little less angst.  Unfortunately, even though I’m optimistic by nature, I doubt the mucus plug phenomenon is going to die easy.

This is because of a few reasons:

What follows is my rationale for why we need to let go of an unhelpful phrase.

First, why am I saying there is no such thing as a mucus plug?  Let me back up a little and clarify a few things about typical vaginal discharge in pregnancy.

When pregnant, women have tons of vaginal discharge.  This vaginal discharge is like a river that has no end until delivery.  It’s A LOT.

We call it leukorrhea.  Pronounced LOO like the English bathroom and Korea, like the country.

Every woman and in every pregnancy has a different amount.  It can be white, clear, creamy, mucus-like, stringy, watery, clumpy, thin and everything in between.  Leukorrhea occurs because the hormonal changes of pregnancy cause the vagina and cervix to essentially be in a state of hyper-secretion.  Isolated LOO-Korea is as predictable as a runny nose in allergy season.  (Now, if a discharge is foul smelling, associated with terrible, I-can’t-leave-the-house-itching, lots of vaginal bleeding, pain, or is literally like 2 cups of watery water, it’s likely NOT run of the mill, leukorrhea, and you need to set up a time to communicate with your provider.)

In addition to leukorrhea, at some point in the pregnancy, many women have blobs of mucus that can come out vaginally.  After it comes out, this mucus will reaccumulate and more will reemerge again within days.

When this handful of mucus makes its appearance, it may mean labor and delivery are on the horizon.

It may mean that you’ll deliver your baby in an hour.

It may just as well mean you will deliver you baby in a month.

It may also mean that tomorrow, you’ll have to wipe away more mucus as it appears.

Given that you may see a blob or multiple blobs (or no blob) of mucus at varying times before you deliver, the term mucus plug is meaningless, unhelpful and frankly, it’s confusing!

Because, to most folks, a plug implies that there is a thing akin to a cork, holding the baby in.

It suggests that this cork is made of slimy, mucusy, goo.

It makes us picture a baby jetting out like a torpedo after the gooey cork hits the toilet.

As if the mucus plug is the one saran wrap layer remaining between the baby and the outside world.

As if the mucus plug is this meaningful birth announcement.  Sigh.

Because of the discrepancy between what the phrase implies and what is actually is, this innocent phrase confuses women and worries them unnecessarily.

And during pregnancy, we have enough worries as it is.

So, it is meaningless when it is an isolated occurrence.  Now if you have all the tell tale sings of labor and a plop of mucus comes out, sure, it now may have some significance.  But without other symptoms, it’s a pointless concept.

This so-called corkplug of glop inspires googling things like “I lost my mucus plug now what” in a flustered mess at 2am.

This plop of gunk inspires wee hour phone calls to doctors for fear that it signifies an emergency.

Despite the fact that many forums have perfectly accurate advice for women searching for information on this phenomenon (i.e., they say this plug is NOT a sign of impending delivery), this overused phrase remains a source of much confusion.

I don’t want to speak for all Ob/Gyn’s but when someone says they lost their mucus plug, many of us may jokingly say (or maybe just think), “You lost it?  Where did it go?  Did you find it?  How long did you spend searching?  Did you put it back?”  This is not to make light of the stress associated with the experience, but rather to start the conversation about what you should really expect to experience when expecting.

So, given the fact that there is much fretting, confusion and misinterpretation of the meaning of this phenomenon, if it were up to me, I would delete Mucus Plug from every forum and pregnancy site.

If I were queen, I would relegate mucus plug to a land with unicorns, pixie dust and purple clouds made of cotton candy.

If there was a vacuum left by its absence, many physicians world wide would have time to discuss more important matters and would have more uninterrupted sleep and more pregnant women would be able to devote their energy to more productive things.

So, since the phrase is worthless and actually is harmful, let’s all stop using it.

Today.

We could stop the confusion in the next month or so if everyone on the planet just reframed how they conceptualized the secretions of pregnancy.

It may sound strange, but the analogy I use a lot to help my patients understand how the vagina and cervix work is that the discharge and slime creation of a vagina is like the saliva production in our mouths and mucus production in our noses.  Except the vagina is hanging upside down and can’t sniffle or clear it’s throat.

Help me stop the confusion.

Tell the next pregnant woman you see in the grocery store that there is no such thing as a mucus plug.

Or, perhaps, just share this article with your pregnant friends.