1990; 50(6): 429-433. doi:10.1055/s-2008-10262762198191 14 Arabin B, Halbesma JR, Vork F, Hübener M, van Eyck J. Is treatment with vaginal pessaries an option in patients with a sonographically detected short cervix? For patients with a short cervix, interventions that have been studied include supplemental vaginal progesterone, cervical cerclage, and cervical pessary. A key weakness of the study is the inability to determine the root causes of the excess perinatal deaths in the pessary group to determine if this was attributable to pessary use or some other confounding factor. Perhaps the best studied pessary for preterm birth prevention was developed by Arabin and Alfirevic[12] in the late 1970s; prior to this, obstetricians primarily used pessaries designed to treat pelvic organ prolapse. [Extracted from the article]