Current status of home uterine activity monitoring

The interval to spontaneous delivery following discontinuation of maintenance tocolysis

“…Indeed, the subject of when to use tocolytics, which route and agent, and for how long is often hotly debated. However, in the peer-reviewed literature, 30 of the 32 studies utilizing SQT for maintenance tocolysis have shown positive results when SQT was administered within a comprehensive program of care [13]. This comprehensive system of care included calculating a patient-specific terbutaline dosage, home uterine activity monitoring, daily and PRN assessment of symptomatology regarding recurrent preterm labor, and unencumbered telephonic access to a nurse if they develop symptoms.…”

Frequency of nursing, physician and hospital interventions in women at risk for preterm delivery

“…Iams and associates 12 reported almost identical figures, where women averaged 1.5 visits per patient regardless of whether they were enrolled in a preterm birth prevention project or not. Indeed, of the six tertiary prevention studies using a population similar to this study (those with preterm labor in the current pregnancy treated with tocolysis and discharged while stable from the hospital), five demonstrated significant prolongation of pregnancy and less neonatal complications 10 . Additionally, Morrison and coworkers 7 also studied this group of women and found a significantly greater gestational age at delivery, higher birth weight and fewer admissions to the neonatal intensive-care unit (NICU) when the outpatient monitored group was compared with a control group who received standard high-risk care.…”

“…Comprehensive preterm labor services in the home as described in this article have been subjected to intense investigation over the past 15 years, resulting in 61 publications of which 52 show benefit in early diagnosis of preterm labor ( 4 2 cm cervical dilatation), significant pregnancy prolongation, and less neonatal morbidity and cost 10 . The data from the current study underscores these findings, indicating that 95.1% of the episodes of increased uterine contractions or other patient-reported symptoms associated with preterm labor were managed by nursing and physician intervention on an outpatient basis.…”

Preterm Birth: A Review

“…Alkaline phosphatase (b) [650,674,675] α-fetoprotein (b) [214][215][216][217][218]220,221,285,293,321,663,[676][677][678] Beta2-macroglobulin (b) [650] Cervical length [263,265,266,268,395,614] Erythroblasts in maternal blood (b) [679] Fetal antigen-1 (b) [637,680] Fetal breathing movements [681] Gravidin / secretory component [682,683] Haematocrit [684] Home uterine activity monitoring [24,685,686] Insulin-like growth factor binding protein-1 (b,c; also nonphosphorylated) [636,687] Major basic protein (b) [688] Nipple stimulation test [689] Placental protein 5 (b) [667] Pregnancy-specific β1 glycoprotein (b) [667] Risk scores [229,232,690,691] * The most accurate or promising markers are printed in bold italic. Abbreviations: a amniotic fluid; b maternal blood; c cervical; s salivary;...…”

“…Night time HUAM had better PPVs than day time HUAM with PPV = 25% at 22-24 weeks and PPV = 23% at 27-28 weeks [686] (see Table 15). Nevertheless, proponents believe that HUAM is useful if it is integrated into a monitoring system of women at high risk of PTB [685].…”