Fitness Trackers May Spot Pregnancy Before Tests

Ravika was celebrating her birthday on holiday with her husband when she got an unusual alert from her fitness tracker.

Her Oura ring flagged that her health score was poor. Her heart rate had gone up, her body temperature was elevated and her heart rate variability (HRV) had dropped. Yet Ravika felt completely fine.

When the stats hadn't improved a week later, the 34-year-old solicitor from the West Midlands did some research online and found a community of women who all said their fitness trackers had been giving them signs they were pregnant, based on the data the trackers had collected.

A week later she had a positive pregnancy test.

But following some cramping and a notification on her phone telling her that her body appeared to be under significant strain, she went to the doctor. She was told to come back in 10 days for tests to establish whether the pregnancy was healthy.

The wait was agonising - and led to her anxiously checking her fitness tracker stats, waking up at 4am every night "just to refresh my app to see if my stats were still low, if my temperature was still elevated. I was holding on to hope that it was a viable pregnancy".

The stats, she said, became an "obsession" - but "for me it really did feel like a life or death situation".

For many women, the first sign that they might be pregnant is a period that doesn't arrive when expected. This is around the same time it's possible to take a pregnancy test. With the exception of some tests that claim to be able to detect a pregnancy early, most aren't able to spot the change in hormones until the first day of a missed period.

But Ravika is one of hundreds of women who are reporting online that they are seeing the signs earlier than this, through the data on their fitness trackers.

Fitness trackers - including smart rings, smart watches and chest-mounted trackers - have surged in popularity in the UK. According to YouGov research, 36% of British adults in January 2026 owned and used a fitness tracker - nearly twice the proportion in July 2019.

Finnish-US company Oura has the highest sales in the smart ring market, which also includes India-based Ultrahuman, and Hong Kong-based RingConn.

- Author: Ashitha Nagesh, BBC

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