Smartwatch, fitness tracker may help detect abnormalities in pregnancy

“Wearable devices offer a unique opportunity to develop innovative solutions that address the high number of adverse pregnancy outcomes in the US,” said co-senior author Giorgio Quer, the director of artificial intelligence and assistant professor of Digital Medicine at Scripps Research.

“Our results show that signals collected via wearable sensors follow the expected changes in hormone levels and can detect unique patterns specific to live birth pregnancies, potentially allowing the monitoring of maternal health throughout the pregnancy and postpartum.”

For the study, the team selected 108 individuals who had consented to provide data from three months before their pregnancy through six months after delivery. Using sophisticated statistical methods to identify population-level patterns, the team could account for individual differences and device variations.

From this data, the scientists were able to identify physiological patterns that aligned with the fluctuation of key pregnancy hormones such as oestrogen, progesterone, and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG). The fluctuations of these hormones are critical to healthy pregnancy outcomes and provide insight into the pregnancy’s progression.

The heart rate data was particularly compelling. During early pregnancy, researchers found that the individual’s heart rate initially decreased around weeks five to nine, then steadily increased until about eight or nine weeks before delivery, reaching peaks up to 9.4 beats per minute above pre-pregnancy levels.

After birth, the heart rate dropped below baseline levels before stabilising around six months postpartum. The researchers also tracked sleep and activity patterns throughout pregnancy.

To validate this correlation, the team compared wearable sensor patterns with published hormone-level data from previous pregnancy studies, creating detailed models that predicted heart rate changes based on expected hormonal fluctuations throughout pregnancy. While these findings are still early, they demonstrate that wearables could potentially enhance prenatal care, particularly for women living in maternal care deserts.

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