Monitoring the progress of pregnancy and labor using electromyography.

At present, there is no effective treatment for preterm labor. The most obvious reason for this anomaly is that there is no objective manner in which to evaluate the progression of pregnancy through steps leading to labor, either at term or preterm. Understanding the physiology of the uterus during term and preterm parturition is important for developing methods to control uterine function and is essential to solving clinical problems related to labor. Several techniques have been adopted to monitor and/or to diagnose labor. Unfortunately they are either subjective or indirect and do not provide an accurate prediction especially for preterm labor. Uterine electromyography (EMG) may provide more objective, highly accurate, and clinically useful information. This may be especially important in clinical scenarios such as prediction of preterm labor, differentiation between true and false labor, and management of labor augmentation, labor induction or tocolysis. Thereby EMG would enable clinicians to apply much better treatment for pregnant patients.