Abdominal EHG on a 4 by 4 grid: Mapping and presenting the propagation of uterine contractions

Abstract

Numerous studies have observed and analyzed the external electrical activity of the uterus associated with contractions and labor. Most of these studies have involved the use of only 3 to 5 electrodes and little effort has been made to investigate the electrical activity concurrently at different locations. In this paper we present the results from measurements of contractions in labor using a 16 electrodes grid. We tried out various methods of presenting and analyzing this data and found this to be a non-trivial task. Here we present both an animation of the evolution of the electric potential, as well as a temporal correlation presentation. The results from a limited sample are in many ways surprising and may provide a new insight in to possible mechanism underlying uterine contractions.