Heartfelt Survival! Apple Watch Saves Life of Pregnant Woman and Baby

The life-saving features of wearable technology continue to become more apparent through new user stories that surface. Smartwatches and fitness trackers now routinely monitor key health parameters, are able to detect abnormalities and provide an early alert system for the user. This critical early detection can allow medical intervention days or weeks sooner than the user might otherwise have sought care. One such example is the story of Veronica Williams, a pregnant woman whose Apple Watch notified her of a high heart rate.

When Veronica Williams was pregnant late last year, her Apple Watch notified her of a concerningly high heart rate, Fox19Now reported. Having felt increasingly short of breath, Williams contacted her doctor after multiple alerts. Advised to visit the emergency room, doctors soon informed Williams that an emergency C-section was needed to deliver the baby.

The procedure went smoothly, but Williams continued struggling with symptoms. Further testing by doctors uncovered a very rare condition - myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle. In Williams' case, her immune system had begun attacking her heart tissue.

The severity of the myocarditis required an extensive month-long hospital stay to stabilise Williams. She continued receiving specialized care from her cardiologist, Dr. Louis Benson Louis IV. He expressed amazement at how the Apple Watch's heart rate notifications allowed doctors to diagnose this little-known condition early enough to save both lives.

Now, months later, both Williams and her baby are doing great health-wise. She credits the life-saving heart rate alerts from her Apple Watch for detecting subtle early symptoms that could have otherwise been missed.

All Apple Watch models since Series 1 contain special optical sensors on the back crystal for tracking real-time heart rate. Abnormal high or low heart rate thresholds can be configured to trigger notifications if sustained over some time. This allows the Apple Watch to be an early warning system for possible underlying conditions.

While not definitively diagnostic, these alerts encourage users to seek medical attention for further testing. In Williams' case, it surfaced a deadly condition days or weeks earlier than typical diagnostics otherwise might have.