Fitness tracker stats pregnancy

[Travellingislife]

Hello everyone,

Is anyone using a fitness tracker of any kind? If so have you noticed anything different when you were pregnant?

The one I’m using shows for example heart rate variability and heart rate. When I got pregnant the last time I knew it before having a positive test because of my increase in hr and decrease in hrv. Overanalysing and tracking everything is a double edged sword though; I had a suspicion I had lost the pregnancy a week before the bleeding started as well ( my stats went back to normal), it could’ve meant nothing as I’ve seen posts about people’s stats going back to normal around the 6-8 week mark and it was nothing wrong with the pregnancy. I’m in two minds whether I should continue using it, it may just mess with my head and cause unnecessary stress. I’m already interpreting and analysing everything as it is.

If you’ve had a loss before and got an indication from the fitness tracker, would you continue to wear it while ttc again?

Hi @Travellingislife I have done the obsessive tracking of RHR for my last 2 pregnancies. One was a CP at 5 weeks knew the day I started spotting as RHR declined quickly. Then second one I had a dip in RHR which went up a bit but found out at a scan a week later it was a MMC. Currently nearly 7weeks now and 2 weeks ago it dipped again and has gone back up. I'll find out if it's another MMC on Tuesday. I think the best thing is to step away from the monitoring but I just can't help myself 🤦‍♀️
How have you been getting on TTC? I found it was def helpful before AF was due as for me RHR stayed high on months when I conceived.

@HoneyPea hello! Finally a fellow obsessive tracker 😂 Congratulations on your pregnancy! It’s good news the HR has gone up again though. Hopefully you’ll get good news on Tuesday. When I lost my pregnancy my HR stayed low.
I should stop tracking too but I’m the same, I can’t stop myself..
I’m currently in my tww, well, if I ovulated this cycle, I’m actually not sure, according to my fitness tracker stats I didn’t, and it’s not showing pregnancy stats either. I trust it as it’s always been right before so I bet my hormones haven’t balanced yet after my miscarriage. I’m on day 30 today.
Please let me know how you get on next week. Fingers crossed for you!

Hey ladies, fellow obsessive stat checker here and hope you don’t mind me joining. I had a Fitbit and took it off when I got a bfp as I got paranoid and then it ended in an mmc last spring anyway. When I put it on after the mc my rhr was soooo low. I now have an Apple Watch so the wrist temp has added in another layer of obsessiveness haha. I find it so interesting though seeing all the stats - last time I didn’t realize about hrv so will be keeping an eye on that too. I’m currently 3 or 4 dpo so early days

@Annapolis35
Hello! I’m glad I’m not the only obsessive one 😆
The stats are super interesting. When I’ve been pregnant before my hrv dropped at conception and stayed down and rhr increased. At the moment I will continue to track it as I rather know early if there’s something wrong, I knew right away when I lost my pregnancy because of my stats.
I’m on day 31 after my loss and I’m not sure I’ve ovulated or where I am in my cycle, I’m checking my bbt as well and my app seems to think I ovulated on day 20, my temp has been up and down though, it’s only from day 26 it’s risen and has stayed up. If I go with my fitness tracker I’ve not ovulated at all and I’m not pregnant..

Have you noticed anything at all on your stats yet?

Feel like RHR is the first thing I check every morning 🤦‍♀️ It really does get obsessive. Gone down 1 today and of course it's made me panic!

@Travellingislife The last 2 months I conceived I had a dip in RHR a few days after ovulation and then it went back up before AF was due.

@HoneyPea you had a dip in heart rate? Interesting! That’s the complete opposite to me, my hr increased at ovulation/ conception and if I didn’t conceive it got lower again after my period started.

@Travellingislife It's been different in my last 4 pregnancies (1 TFMR, 1 CP, 1 MMC and current) When I went to my scan for the MMC I said I knew something was wrong because of my RHR dropping so quickly and the midwife looked at me like I was crazy and said there's no evidence to say it is related at all, I then went on to find out it was a MMC! This is my RHR this time, it's been very strange, yellow is predicted ovulation (never got a positive OPK), purple early BFP (11dpo, spotted for 3days 7dpo-9dpo) and red is predicted period day.

Hey ladies. I think mine dipped a bit too the month I got a bfp but gradually rose again and was the reason really I knew I was pregnant as it never went down. However I’ve had months where it’s dipped after o but been a bfn, I think the only thing that seems relevant for my cycles is if stays high when period is meant to arrive

I have no idea what’s going on this month really, we’ve been trying again for a while (had mmc last April) so stopped using opks as it made it a bit too pressurized and stressful and we’ve just been dtd every other day over about a week or so. My watch however says I am 5dpo because of wrist temp, but when I put it into fertility friend it says 3dpo so I’m unsure. My rhr and HRV have done nothing exceptional really, just been up and down and though my rhr is high today I think it’ll recalculate and be lower by the end of the day. I basically don’t have a clue what’s going on haha. I’ve attached pics and possible o date is the line

I think the Apple Watch rhr seems different to the Fitbit one, no pattern has emerged at all and it doesn’t help I got it just after my period finished. My rhr is definitely lower on Apple Watch than Fitbit which is weird.

sorry to hear of your three losses @HoneyPea that’s a lot to go through and also sorry @Travellingislife. it took me a while to get a period after my mmc so it may be a wonky cycle until your body gets back to normal?

@HoneyPea I never got a positive opk this month either and I’ve had some pink / brown spotting the last few days. I’m not sure if it’s my period being weird ( first one after mc) or what the heck is going on.
I guess it’s the long term trends we need to look for on hr and hrv but maybe you can’t always get trends?!
I’m also checking my rhr every morning haha, so obsessed!
Hoping you get good news tomorrow!

@Annapolis35 Sorry to hear about your mc as well, it’s such a shitty situation 😞
I feel like I don’t know what’s going on either, I really thought my hormones had been balanced already but now I’m not sure. I got ovulation signs a few days after my spotting ( after the mc) stopped and I was convinced I ovulated. I got strong opk’s but not quite positive and my temperature has been all over the place. I usually trust my cm though and it usually indicates when I ovulate, now I don’t know what to think. I wish I could at least get my period so I know where I am in my cycle. I travel a lot with work so I really want to try and work out my fertile window.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with your rhr when you get closer to the date your period is due!
Maybe your Apple Watch is more accurate than the Fitbit and your rhr is lower than you thought.

It’s so hard @Travellingislife as you just want to get on with ttc but have to wait for your body. I don’t think I ovulated until about 6 weeks after my procedure which was quite frustrating. Maybe your body has been gearing up to ovulate but hasn’t yet? Your body has gone through a massive trauma so it can take a while to regulate and clear all the hormones out of your system. Getting my period def helped with the mental side of it all too. You have my sympathies, it’s truly a shit time.

yeah I think the Apple Watch might be more accurate, I’m not sure though and will have to see how it goes. We’ve been trying again so long I don’t even believe it will happen again, I just try to ignore my body now and “symptoms”. I love looking at the stats though, it’s super interesting

@Annapolis35 yeah I think I’ll feel much better mentally when I get my period and can get on with ttc!
I think you’re doing the right thing, trying not to symptom spot and just dtd around your fertile period.
I’ve seen a fertility specialist and he said it’s not unusual for it to take a year of trying before you get pregnant. I’m trying to be patient but it’s difficult.

Good news for us today, saw a blob with a heartbeat and measuring ahead by about a week! Very surprised!
@Travellingislife It took a few period for mine to go back to normal after my MMC and I got lots of pink cervical mucus at random times during the month.
@Annapolis35 DH has an Apple Watch and I'm sure they are more sensitive and you can monitor more things using it.

@HoneyPea ah amazing news! So happy for you, you must be so relieved!
Is your rhr still low? I’ve read about a lot of women whose rhr decreased around week 8-9, maybe it’s something in that.
My period seems to have arrived now so I hope I’ll ovulate in a few weeks 🙏🏼

Fantastic news @HoneyPea and what a relief it must have been to see a heart beat and measuring ahead! Hopefully that can ease your worries a bit.

Yeah the Apple Watch now measures wrist temp too and gives retrospective ovulation dates as well as all sorts of other things—I have learnt my walking stride is good lol. I have no idea how accurate the wrist temp is for ovulation as I’ve not had it for long - time will tell. But it’s also a relief to see that I am ovulating because there has been a shift in temp upwards. I am finding the added layer of data super interesting.

@Travellingislife I am glad period has arrived, hopefully it’ll help and you can get on with ttc!

Thanks both. @Annapolis35 It has eased a little bit but now we are onto the next part which is NIPT testing as my TFMR was due to chromosomal problems which caused major heart issues. All the extra data sounds interesting but would probably cause me to go down more of a rabbit hole looking for info 🤦‍♀️
@Travellingislife They have put me at 8weeks so the dip seems to have been around 6wks. The lowest it went down to was 68 a few weeks ago then back up to 72 last week and has just gone up to 74 today. RHR before ovulation tends to be 61-67 so I suppose it never dipped lower than that. When I had my MMC on Oct it never went lower than 70 but stayed around 70-71 for around 10days and that's when we found out.

@HoneyPea
God I’m deep down that rabbit hole 😂 I need to chill a bit and stop reading so much. I think I’ve been confusing things, I’ve read that people usually see a dip in rhr around 6 weeks, the body is getting used to being pregnant, and also around week 8-9 when the placenta takes over. But it’s so different from person to person and also between pregnancies! Not sure how much you should read into it.
When I was pregnant with my son my rhr went up and stayed up from ovulation. I guess it doesn’t mean it would do it again if I get pregnant but I’ll probably be obsessing about it..
If I get pregnant again I’ll do a NIPT, I just turned 41 so I’m worried about chromosomal issues. I feel like it’s so difficult to just enjoy the pregnancy and not worry about all these things 😔

It’s all so interesting. I input my rhr against wrist temp in fertility friend and can definitely see a pattern now - I expect AF is due to arrive on Monday as expected. Still can’t make sense of HRV, it just seems to go up and down 🤷‍♀️

@Annapolis35 super interesting! I’ve not plotted temp vs. rhr and hrv but I think I will start doing that. I’m sure I’ll be able to see trends!

I tracked the HRV against temp and I can see a pattern, it follows wrist temp almost perfectly apart from in the luteal phase where it goes completely opposite. If anything, at least I am enjoying the data! Haha and def makes the tedious 2ww slightly more interesting. I found this article really helpful
ouraring.com/blog/your-menstrual-cycle/

How are you doing? Your period must be normally over? I’m due on tomorrow so we will see.

@Annapolis35 plotting this might try to take my mind off ttc a little bit too 😊
I just read the article, fascinating indeed!
My period has just finished and it’ll be interesting to see when I’ll ovulate, a normal cycle would mean around day 16-18 but I‘m
prepared for it to be different now.
My hrv and rhr change right away if I have a few glasses of wine or if I sleep badly. I suppose I can add that to the chart as well. OR I should not have any wine at all, I just feel like I don’t want to stop everything that’s fun to ttc, it’ll make me even more obsessed.

Hopefully you won’t get your period now!

Lo and behold my period turned up right on time, onwards and upwards to another cycle. I had started to get a bit hopeful as my boobs still hurt and they normally always stop hurting on the day of period.

Just goes to show that my rhr, HRV, temp and respiratory rate were still wonky but didn’t mean anything. I ov around the same as you — it varies each month by a couple of days, I think it is impacted by stress. After the mmc I had a few very long cycles where I didn’t ov until day 20 or 22.

I think you should continue to live your life and have wine as otherwise this would be even more tedious. And whatever relaxes you can only be good. So many women don’t find out they’re pregnant until much later so I wouldn’t worry.

Also it seems my Apple Watch was spot on at guessing ovulation date! I always have the same luteal phase. That’s actually quite amazing

@Travellingislife I'm trying not to read too much into it seeing as it seems to have started dropping again. However HR is going up into the 100's simply from walking around, it was 120 putting the washing out earlier and got active minutes for it (usually only get them if I'm doing a work out or strenuous walk so body is obviously working extra hard)
@Annapolis35 It really is amazing what you can predict once you get to know your body (or in this case once the Apple Watch does!)
I deff think if you still have a high (higher than ovulation) RHR when AF is due it's a positive sign. It has been for me in each of my pregnancies.

@HoneyPea Its so stressful and I have my fingers crossed everything is ok for you, I ended up taking my Fitbit off last time I was pregnant as it stressed me out so much.

My AF still hasn’t properly arrived, I’ve just been getting brown gunk today and yesterday (sorry tmi). This isn’t unheard of and I used to get this before I got pregnant. I’m not sure what’s going on, I’ll wait a few days to see as pretty certain AF is gonna turn up in full flow as my wrist temp is slowly dropping