The importance of uterine contractions extraction in evaluation of the progress of labour by calculating the values of sample entropy from uterine electromyogram

Abstract

We evaluate complexity of the uterine electromyographic activity during the labor with a delay in progress by calculating the values of sample entropy. We compared monitoring of the labour by values of SampEn calculated from successive nonoverlaping segments of uterine EMG signal and values of SampEn calculated from EMG signal during successive uterine contractions. It is possible to detect the delay in the progress of labour by both principles. But due to the fact, that extraction of the uterine contractions from uterine EMG signal is time consuming and due to higher variability of the values of SampEn calculated from EMG signal during successive uterine contractions, we recommend to use the first principle. Moreover, the method could be implemented on-line and could be as such used as a diagnostic tool in a delivery room. © 2010 International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering.