Smartwatch, fitness tracker may help detect abnormalities in pregnancy

A simple wearable device like a smartwatch or a fitness tracker may help revolutionise pregnancy care and easily detect abnormalitiesScientists at Scripps Research have found preliminary evidence suggesting that common wearable devices such as the Apple Watch Garmin and Fitbit could remotely monitor pregnancyrelated health changes by tracking physiological patterns like heart rate that correlate with hormonal fluctuationsldquoWearable devices offer a unique opportunity to develop innovative solutions that address the high number of adverse pregnancy outcomes in the USrdquo said cosenior author Giorgio Quer the director of artificial intelligence and assistant professor of Digital Medicine at Scripps ResearchldquoOur 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 postpartumrdquoFor 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 populationlevel patterns the team could account for individual differences and device variationsFrom 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 pregnancyrsquos progressionThe heart rate data was particularly compelling During early pregnancy researchers found that the individualrsquos heart rate initially decreased around weeks five to nine then steadily increased until about eight or nine weeks before delivery reaching peaks up to 94 beats per minute above prepregnancy levelsAfter birth the heart rate dropped below baseline levels before stabilising around six months postpartum The researchers also tracked sleep and activity patterns throughout pregnancyTo validate this correlation the team compared wearable sensor patterns with published hormonelevel 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 desertsThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever