Effect of obesity on preterm delivery prediction by transabdominal recording of uterine electromyography

Abstract Objective It has been shown that noninvasive uterine electromyography (EMG) can identify true preterm labor more accurately than methods available to clinicians today. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of body mass index (BMI) on the accuracy of uterine EMG in predicting preterm delivery. Materials and Methods Predictive values of uterine EMG for preterm delivery were compared in obese versus overweight/normal BMI patients. Hanley–McNeil test was used to compare receiver operator characteristics curves in these groups. Previously reported EMG cutoffs were used to determine groups with false positive/false negative and true positive/true negative EMG results. BMI in these groups was compared with Student t test ( p