What This Means for Expecting Parents Right Now
Pregnancy is one of the most complex biological processes the human body goes through — and yet, for decades, monitoring it has relied largely on periodic check-ups and snapshots in time.
Now, that’s starting to change.
Wearable technology — from smart rings and watches to experimental medical patches — is opening the door to continuous, real-world insight into maternal health. What once required lab tests or hospital visits is increasingly being reflected in data people already collect every day.
From early risk signals to better continuity of care, wearable tech is reshaping how pregnancy can be understood, supported, and monitored.
Watch the video version: This article is a companion to a Looped In Tech video exploring the topic through real-world wearable tech use cases and visual demonstrations.
Why Pregnancy Monitoring Needs to Evolve
Pregnancy complications remain a major global health challenge.
Conditions such as miscarriage, preterm birth, gestational diabetes, and preeclampsia affect millions of families each year. Preterm birth alone — defined as delivery before 37 weeks — accounts for roughly 10% of pregnancies worldwide and is still the leading cause of infant mortality.
Access to care is also uneven. In the United States, more than two million women live in maternal care deserts, where obstetric services are limited or difficult to reach. Even in well-served areas, traditional prenatal care often consists of appointments spaced weeks apart.
The problem is that pregnancy is not static.
Hormones fluctuate daily. Cardiovascular load changes. Sleep patterns shift. Subtle warning signs can emerge — and disappear — between visits. A system built around periodic snapshots struggles to capture continuous change.
This is where wearable technology becomes relevant.
What Wearables Can Measure — And Why It Matters
Modern wearables already track a range of physiological signals, including:
• Resting heart rate
• Heart rate variability (HRV)
• Respiratory rate
• Skin or body temperature trends
• Sleep duration and quality
• Activity and recovery patterns
Individually, these metrics may seem routine. Together, they form a picture of how the body is adapting to pregnancy.
The key question researchers have been asking is whether these everyday signals actually reflect deeper biological processes — particularly hormonal changes that drive pregnancy progression.
Recent research suggests they do.
Research Insight: Heart Rate and Hormones Align
A study conducted by researchers at Scripps Research analyzed data from consumer wearables such as Apple Watch, Fitbit, and Garmin devices. The goal was to examine whether wearable signals aligned with expected hormonal patterns during pregnancy.
The findings were compelling.
Heart rate trends followed a consistent pattern:
• A slight decrease in early pregnancy (around weeks 5–9)
• A steady rise through the second and third trimesters
• Peaks approaching delivery, averaging around 9 beats per minute above pre-pregnancy baseline
• A drop after birth, followed by gradual stabilization over several months
These trends closely mirrored known fluctuations in pregnancy hormones such as estrogen, progesterone, and hCG.
Even more notable was an early exploratory finding: pregnancies that ended in adverse outcomes, such as miscarriage or stillbirth, showed different heart rate patterns compared to healthy pregnancies.
While the sample size was small and the research is still preliminary, it highlights an important point — wearable data is not random noise. It can reflect meaningful physiological processes when interpreted correctly.
Moving Beyond Fitness: Experimental Pregnancy Wearables
While consumer wearables capture indirect signals, researchers are also developing purpose-built pregnancy monitoring devices.
At Washington University in St. Louis, engineers and clinicians are working on a soft, stretchable, wireless wearable patch designed to monitor electrical and mechanical signals from the uterus.
This device aims to:
• Measure uterine contractions directly
• Map contraction activity in three dimensions
• Track both maternal and fetal signals
• Provide real-time insight into labor and preterm birth risk
Backed by nearly $1 million in NIH funding, the project targets one of the most persistent problems in obstetrics: the inability to reliably predict preterm birth.
Although still in development, this approach signals a broader shift — pregnancy monitoring is moving from episodic clinical checks to continuous, at-home insight.
ŌURA’s Pregnancy Insights: Wearables in the Real World
While much of the research is still emerging, one wearable company has already translated these ideas into a consumer product.
ŌURA, known for its smart ring, has expanded its women’s health platform with a dedicated Pregnancy Insights experience. Unlike basic cycle tracking, this feature set focuses on how maternal biometrics evolve throughout pregnancy.
What Makes Pregnancy Insights Different
ŌURA’s approach combines large-scale population data with individual trends, creating a more contextualized experience.
Key elements include:
Gestational Tracking
Instead of simply marking trimesters, the app provides weekly insights explaining how metrics are expected to change at each stage of pregnancy.
Trend Visualization
Users can view resting heart rate, HRV, respiratory rate, and temperature across trimesters or the full pregnancy timeline, compared against anonymized population ranges.
Symptom and Experience Tagging
Pregnancy-specific tags — such as Braxton Hicks contractions, nausea, pelvic pain, and food aversions — allow users to correlate subjective experiences with biometric data.
Pregnancy-Aware Scoring
Sleep and readiness metrics adapt to pregnancy physiology, reducing false “penalties” caused by normal cardiovascular changes.
Educational Context
Integrated content developed with medical advisors helps explain why metrics are changing and when deviations may be worth discussing with a care provider.
This system is built on biometric data from over 10,000 pregnancies, with supporting findings presented at the World Sleep Meeting — providing a level of scientific grounding not always seen in consumer health products.
From Self-Tracking to Integrated Care
ŌURA’s expansion doesn’t stop at pregnancy.
The company has also launched a Perimenopause Check-In, which combines:
• A clinically validated symptom questionnaire
• Long-term biometric trend tracking
• Shareable reports for healthcare providers
Through partnerships with women’s health clinics such as Midi Health, Evernow, Maven Clinic, and Progyny, wearable data can now play a role in real clinical decision-making — if users choose to share it.
This marks an important evolution.
Wearables are no longer just personal dashboards. They are becoming bridges between daily life and professional care.
What This Means for the Future of Maternal Health
Wearable technology will not replace obstetricians, midwives, or medical diagnostics.
But it can fill critical gaps.
• Continuous monitoring between appointments
• Early visibility into unusual trends
• Greater reassurance during normal physiological changes
• Improved access for people in underserved regions
For pregnancy in particular, the value lies in context — understanding what is expected, what is normal, and what may warrant attention.
As research expands and datasets grow more diverse, wearable-driven insights may help personalize pregnancy care in ways that were not previously possible.
A Shift That’s Already Underway
It’s easy to think of wearables as tools for counting steps or tracking sleep.
In reality, they are becoming windows into some of the body’s most complex processes.
Pregnancy may be one of the clearest examples of this shift — where everyday devices are starting to reflect deep biological change, offering insight, continuity, and peace of mind along the way.
The future of maternal health may not arrive with a single breakthrough device.
It may arrive quietly — worn on a finger, a wrist, or a patch on the skin — collecting the signals that help care evolve.
This article accompanies a Looped In Tech YouTube video exploring this very topic. Together, they’re part of an ongoing exploration of how wearable technology is reshaping health, work, and the everyday experiences shaping our future.