Your FitBit may already be helping you get in shape, but now, it could also help you get pregnant. Thanks to a new internal pilot study conducted by Clue, a period-tracking and fertility app, wearables just may be the tool parents-in-waiting have been waiting for. By tracking the resting heart rates (RHRs) for four phases of the menstrual cycle by way of a device like the FitBit, Clue has effectively designed a way to employ wearables in couples’ efforts to conceive.
In conducting their study, researchers associated with Clue collected data on six women’s resting heart rates, ovulations, menstrual cycle lengths, and period durations for up to 12 menstrual cycles. Negative controls were implemented in the form of female participants on hormonal birth control and a male participant. According to Clue’s data, there was an observed rise in RHR following ovulation, and while this finding in and of itself isn’t anything new, the period tracking app notes that “the novelty is that this has never been done before with the help of a passive wearable sensor technology (available to consumers).”
Moreover, Clue notes, RHR was found to be significantly higher in both the ovulatory and luteal phase (the second part of the cycle) when compared to menstruation and the follicular phase (the first part of the cycle). This information could similarly be used to help women determine the most ideal times for conceiving a child.
It’s certainly a brand new use case for wearables like the FitBit, and speaks to the variety of applications that such technology could be used in. Details of Clue’s findings in its FitBit experiment will be presented in full at the annual meeting of ESHRE (the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology) by Dr. Vedrana Högqvist Tabor, Director of Scientific Research at Clue.
Already, the FitBit has helped at least one woman determine that she was pregnant — in a serendipitous turn of events, Dr. Tabor determined that Clue’s Director of Marketing, Lisa Kennelly, was pregnant after examining her FitBit data.
So stay tuned, friends. You could soon be wearing the secret to pregnancy on your wrist.
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