A digital system for recording the electrical activity of the uterus

The ability to identify true pre-term tabour would be of considerable clini cal benefit as electrical signals from the uterus, recorded using surface e lectrodes, may discriminate between labouring and non-labouring states in h uman pregnancy. A digital recording system for recording the electrical act ivity of the uterus has been developed and is described in this paper. A pi lot study in which entire recordings in 21 women were subjected to power sp ectral analysis suggests that the relative power in two frequency bands (0. 2-0.45 Hz and 0.8-3 Hz) changes as pregnancy progresses into early tabour.