Clinical Reference for Doulas
Bishop Score Calculator
Cervical readiness for induction, in three versions
Not medical advice. I am a doula and educator, not a medical provider, and this is a teaching tool, not a clinical decision aid. It does not replace the judgment of the care team.
Doulas do not perform cervical exams. This calculator is here so you can understand the score your care team is talking about when they weigh an induction. Someone reads the values from an exam; you can use this to make sense of them.
How the three versions differ
Standard. The original score from Edward Bishop. Five components: cervical dilation, effacement, position, and consistency, plus fetal station. It runs from 0 to 13. A higher number means a more favorable cervix, one more likely to respond to an induction the way spontaneous labor would.
Modified. The same five components, then adjusted for factors that shift the odds. Add a point for preeclampsia and for each prior vaginal birth. Subtract a point for a postdate pregnancy, for a first birth, and for PPROM. These adjustments reflect how much the cervix and body have already been primed, or held back.
Simplified. Research found that three of the components, dilation, station, and effacement, predict induction outcomes about as well as the full score. It runs from 0 to 9. It keeps the same direction as the full score, so a higher number is still more favorable. Because it drops two components, read it as directional rather than matching the full score’s cutoff.
Sources
- Bishop EH. Pelvic Scoring for Elective Induction. Obstet Gynecol. 1964;24:266-268.
- Laughon SK, Zhang J, Troendle J, Sun L, Reddy UM. Using a Simplified Bishop Score to Predict Vaginal Delivery. Obstet Gynecol. 2011;117(4):805-811.
- Bishop Score. StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing, NCBI Bookshelf.
- American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Induction of labor and cervical ripening guidance.
A note on the numbers: score thresholds vary by source and are used here as a general guide, not a fixed rule. Cervical station is scored a little differently across references too. This tool follows the common convention of -3 (0), -2 to -1 (1), 0 (2), and +1 to +2 (3). Some references instead give -2 its own row (1 point) and score -1 and 0 together (2 points).
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