Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Apr 25, 2023
Date Accepted: Feb 23, 2024
Mitigating Health-Related Uncertainties during Pregnancy: The Role of Smart Health Monitoring Technologies
ABSTRACT
Background:
Pregnancy is a time filled with uncertainties, which can be challenging and lead to fear or anxiety for expectant parents. Health monitoring technologies that allow monitoring of the vital signs of both the mother and fetus offer a way to address health-related uncertainties.
Objective:
This Short Paper aims at examining, on a conceptual level, the impact of smart health monitoring technologies on health uncertainties during pregnancy.
Methods:
Using conceptual reasoning and a phenomenological approach, this paper explores how the use of smart health monitoring technologies can alleviate some health-related uncertainties during pregnancy, while also introducing new ones.
Results:
Although smart health monitoring technologies can alleviate some health-related uncertainties, they may also create new ones, particularly when the abundance of vital data overwhelms pregnant persons, results in false-positive diagnoses, or raises concerns about the accuracy and analysis of data.
Conclusions:
Using smart health monitoring technologies is not a cure-all for overcoming health-related uncertainties during pregnancy. Since the use of such monitoring technologies can introduce new uncertainties, it is important to carefully consider where and for what purpose they are used, use them sparingly, and promote a pragmatic approach to uncertainties.
Citation
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.