An Automatic Method for the Segmentation and Classification of Imminent Labor Contraction From Electrohysterograms

Objective: Preterm birth is the first cause of perinatal morbidity and mortality. Despite continuous clinical routine improvements, the preterm rate remains steady. Moreover, the specificity of the early diagnosis stays poor as many hospitalized women for preterm delivery threat finally deliver at term. In this context, the use of electrohysterograms may increase the sensitivity and the specificity of early diagnosis of preterm labor. Methods: This paper proposes a clinical application of electrohysterogram processing for the classification of patients as prone to deliver within a week or later. The approach relies on non-linear correlation analysis for the contraction bursts extraction and uses computation of various features combined with the use of Gaussian mixture models for their classification. The method is tested on a new dataset of 68 records collected on women hospitalized for preterm delivery threat. Results: This paper presents promising results for the automatic segmentation of the contraction and a classification sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of, respectively, 80.7%, 76.3%, and 76.2%. Conclusion: These results are in accordance with the gold standards but have the advantage to be non-invasive and could be performed at home. Significance: Diagnosis of imminent labor is possible by electrohysterography recording and may help in avoiding over-medication and in providing better cares to at-risk pregnant women.