Wearable Patch Device for Uterine EMG and Preterm Birth Monitoring Applications

Uterine contraction is a critical activity of pregnancy monitoring and can be used to predict preterm birth. Recently, wearable uterine EMG measuring devices have been introduced to monitor pregnancy such as pre-term birth. In this work, we proposed an abdomen attachable patch device as uterine EMG signal acquisition circuits. Multi-channel uterine EMG signals could be measured simultaneously and the device size is about 43 * 36 mm(2). The number of peak points of the EHG signal envelope and FFT integral value have been studied as new feature parameters for discrimination of preterm birth. The number of envelope peak points of EHG signals is expected to be useful in predicting preterm delivery risk. We conducted subject test and obtained real uterine EMG data from pregnant woman with the proposed patch device. We compared FFT plots of uterine EMG during normal state and uterine contraction state. FFT integral value of contraction state is also higher than the normal state subjects in 0.20 similar to 4 Hz frequency band.