Garmin schools Fitbit and Apple Watch with a new tracking feature that women have been crying out for

Garmin watches already track a load of metrics – as do fitness watches and smartwatches from rivals Apple and Fitbit. Some of the what they track could be described as a little esoteric, but Garmin has pulled out something truly essential with its latest update. 

Yep, Garmin has added a pregnancy tracking feature to its fitness wearables. So,  while you're busy growing an entire human, your smartwatch isn't going to be giving you a hard time about not running five miles at 6AM, like you used to. 

Along with the Garmin Connect app, pregnant users can press pause on their training status, or adjust their alerts, so that bodily changes that come along with gestating, like increased resting heart rate and blood volume, aren't flagged as metrics of a declining fitness level.     

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Users can log pregnancy symptoms, create and customise reminders, track their baby's movements, and even see weekly baby size updates. 

While we've seen smartwatches and fitness trackers slowly roll out menstrual tracking, pregnancy tracking has been absent – and a long time coming. Garmin's VP of global consumer marketing, Susan Lyman, said:

"The positive feedback we received when we launched menstrual cycle tracking was a clear indication that our female customers are looking for more opportunities to use technology to improve their health and fitness. 

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"It’s our hope that this pregnancy tracking feature helps women make sense of how their pregnancy ties into their active lifestyles and overall well-being."

Garmin has listed its compatible devices  for the Connect App which requires Android version 6.0 or later, and iOS 12 or higher. Compatible wearables include the Venu, vívoactive, Forerunner, and fēnix series through the Connect IQ store, and the vívomove series through the Women’s Health Tracking widget.