Abdominal electrohysterogram data acquisition problems and their source of origin

Abdominal electrohysterogram (EHG) is an alternative to tocography tool which may prove to be useful in clinical evaluation of the pregnant uterus activity. EHG traces were found as a reliable predictor of premature labor. The main obstacle one can find trying to use abdominal electrohysterography for solving clinical problems is almost a complete lack of standards concerning the electrodes localisation, methods of signal amplifying and filtering and the algorithms used for obtaining clinically useful data. On the basis of two years´ experience with the system developed by the authors, which was built for the external recording and analysing of EHG signals, the authors attempt to identify some main sources of experimental data misinterpretation and to present procedures implemented for troubleshooting. It is concluded that the proposed methods provide satisfactory abdominal EHG tracings that have proved to be helpful in everyday clinical practice.