Hegar's sign

Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]

Hegar’s sign is an indication of pregnancy in a woman, specifically the compressibility and softening of the cervical isthmus (the portion of the cervix between the uterus and the vaginal portion of the cervix) and the uterine cervix appearing bluish and engorged.

The sign is usually present during second and third months of pregnancy from the fourth to sixth week. It is not a positive indicator of pregnancy, and its absence does not exclude pregnancy.

The indicator was originally described by Ernst Ludwig Alfred Hegar, a German gynecologist, in 1895. Hegar credits one of his students for discovering the sign.

• Chadwick sign
• Goodell’s sign

• E. Sonntag Das Hegar’sche Schwangerschaftzeichen Leipzig, 1892. Ca. 20 pp. Sammlung Klinischer Vorträge herausgegeben, Leipzig, Neue Folge no. 58.

• A. Hegar Diagnose der frühesten Schwangerschaftsperiode Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift, Berlin, 1895, 21 (35): 565-567.

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