Apple Watch’s heart rate tech helped discover an early pregnancy

A Reddit user credits the discovery of her early pregnancy to the Apple Watch. The change in her average heart rate made her curious to find out what caused it to rise which led to the pleasant discovery even before a clinical test.

Starting from the first generation, Apple Watch offers heart rate measuring technology. As it is an important feature that allows users to monitor how their body, users can take a reading anywhere at any time like during everyday usage, workout, walking, resting, or breathing sessions.

Furthermore, users can also view their heart rate data over a longer period of time in the iPhone Health app for the last hour, day, week, month, or year. This helps them better analyze the changes in their average heart rate and if any medical assistance is required.

A 34-year-old woman discovered her pregnancy within a month of conceiving thanks to her Apple Watch

According to @Devillilliana post on Reddit, she said normally has a higher resting heart rate at the age of 34. But when it rose from 57 to 72, she got alarmed and began to find the reasons behind such a “big jump”.

Since she was breastfeeding her 18 months old and had not had a period since the baby’s birth, she thought the change might be because of COVID and a cold. Both suspicions her false.

Luckily she read that early pregnancy is also a cause of higher heart rate and an at-home test proved that was the case. She is thankful for her Apple Watch for knowing that something was different so early on in the pregnancy because it has given her time to explore her options.

The watch knew I was pregnant before I knew it! I would have never ever tested without wearing my watch because I haven’t had a period to be late on one!

I am freaking out as I am not ready for another baby but this allows me time to consider my options and think about what I am going to do. I know this might be an offbeat use for the watch but if you’re a woman of child rearing age and your watch shows a HR increase it might be worth it to test!

She later updated, a clinical test confirmed that she was 4 weeks pregnant but the baby did not show up on the ultrasound because it was too early in the development stage.

“THE ULTRASOUND COULDN’T DETECT ANYTHING YET DUE TO HOW EARLY I AM SO SHE IS BRINGING ME BACK FOR A DATING SCAN IN 2-3 WEEKS BUT SAID THE EDD IS ABOUT JUNE 9TH 2023.

SO THE WATCH ALERTED ME AND I TOOK A TEST TRYING TO FIGURE IT OUT THAT IT BASICALLY CAUGHT THE PREGNANCY RIGHT AWAY!”

Apple Watch users have shared several stories about how the smartwatch has detected AFib, and hard falls, and has called emergency services during robberies to save their lives. But detecting pregnancy is one of the first.

New watchOS 9 has introduced new health features like AFib History, Medications app, and improved Sleep tracing on compatible models. And the latest Apple Watch Series 8, SE, and Ultra come with wrist temperature sensors to offer retrospective ovulation estimates for fertility planning and sleep tracking.