[Monitoring cervical dilatation by impedance]

Several different physics procedures have been tried to mechanize the recording of partograms. Can a measure of impedance of tissue Z using potential difference V, according to Ohm's law V = Z1, and 1 is a constant, be correlated with a measure of cervical dilatation using vaginal examination? This was our hypothesis. The tissue impedance meter was made to our design and applied according to a bipolar procedure. Our work was carried out on 28 patients. 10 patients were registered before labour started in order to test the apparatus and to record the impedance variations without labour taking place, and 18 patients were registered in labour to see whether there was any correlation. The level of impedance in the cervix without labour was 302.7 Ohms with a deviation of 8.2. Using student's t tests it was found that there was a significant correlation (p less than 0.001) in four measurements between the impedance measure and measures obtained by extrapolating the degrees of dilatation calculated from vaginal examination. This is a preliminary study in which we have defined the conditions that are necessary to confirm these first results and to further develop the method.