Any other pregnant Fitbit/Garmin/other health tracker wearers noticed this?

[Thistledew]

I use a Garmin fitness tracker.

Since becoming pregnant, my "stress" readings have completely changed. I've gone from a usual day having 'lots of restful moments' this to virtually none over the course of the day.

I first noticed this issue when I started wearing a fitness tracker whilst I was still breastfeeding DS1. My periods did not return until he was nearly 2 years old and it was not until they did that I started recording a decent amount of 'restful moments' throughout the day.

I have googled but haven't found much in the way of studies or explanations as to why this is. I learned that these fitness trackers measure 'restfulness' as a slight increase in the period between the two phases of your heartbeat.

As to the reason why a pregnant or breastfeeding woman might display low levels of 'restfullness' the most useful thing I found was a study on post-menopausal women: when they started taking HRT to replace oestrogen they reported much better quality sleep- i.e. more 'restful periods'. Of course, when we are pregnant or not ovulating, we will have low oestrogen levels.

Has anyone else noticed this effect whilst pregnant or breastfeeding? And can anyone with medical knowledge share any further information?

I wish this source of data could be more widely studied and shared. It seems to be great evidence as to just how much of a strain pregnancy and breastfeeding places on the body.

It's a known thing that heart rate increases in early pregnancy and has been spotted by Fitbit users. It's probably due to pumping more blood around the body to the uterus.

That is also interesting, but not quite the same point. What I have noticed is not to do with overall heart rate but how your heartbeat is supposed to alter when you are at rest.

Your pulse is supposed to increase in pregnancy - it’s completely normal physiology.

Yes resting heart rate.

I understand your point juneybean, but it is not the same as the one I am making.

There are two phases to each heartbeat. When a person is active or under stress, the gap between the phases is shorter than when they are at rest. The fitness trackers measure the variance in these 'pause lengths' to not when you are active or stressed or when you are at rest. What my fitness tracker is picking up is that my heartbeat seldom goes into rest mode when I am pregnant or breastfeeding. This is something different from the measurement of active/resting heart rate, which is simply the number of times it beats per minute.

Here is some info that might explain it more clearly than I can:

basic

https://support.garmin.com/en-GB/?
faq=04pnPSBTYSAYL9FylZoUl5 more detail]]

@Thistledew know this is an old thread but did you find the answer to this? I've not really paid historic attention to the stress feature on my Garmin but it currently (34 weeks) has me at very high stress for the majority of the day (75-100), even at times when I really think I'm resting / relaxing. Wondering if this is just a quirk of the measure that means it's not very applicable in pregnancy, or if I need to get on it with some meditation quick!