Uterine electromyography: A critical review

Placental site does not change background uterine electromyographic activity in the middle trimester of pregnancy

“…In pregnant women with no contractions EMG activity represents the background uterine electrical activity [1,11]. In some studies it was reported that anterior placental implantation could reduce the EMG uterine activity due to the placental hormonal inhibitory influence on the surrounding myometrial cells [10,11].…”

“…Uterine electrical activity has been an important subject of interest during last decades, particularly after development of a new, noninvasive method for electrical assessment of the pregnant uterus -transabdominal uterine electromyography (EMG); and improved filtering system that reduces the recording artifacts [1,2]. Electrical activity originates form the depolarization and repolarisation of thousands of smooth muscle myometrial cells [3].…”

“…Organized and synchronized electrical activity precedes mechanical activity which results in myometrial contractions [1,8].…”

“…The anterior uterine wall is the main origin of the uterine electrical activity detected trough the abdominal wall [1,2]. So far there have been no studies investigating the relationship of transabdominally recorded EMG activity of uterus and placental implantation site in mid trimester of pregnancy.…”

Activity of smooth muscles in human cervix and uterus

“…Recordings made either at the myometrial or abdominal level provide reliable and useful information on uterine muscle behaviour [7,8]. Most studies measured the EMO activity in the uterine corpus, whereas our group have focused on measuring the cervical EMO activity [9][10][11].…”