Quantifying The Health Effects of Having a Baby
Biometrics are crazy.
Written by Sameer Sontakey.
My wife and I had our 2nd child just over two months ago. The latest addition to the family wanted to ring in the New Year with everyone, apparently, as my wife went into labor late on December 31st. The fourth member of the family was welcomed with open arms, joining my newly 2 year-old daughter and my wife and I.
A lot has changed since our first child graced us with her presence a few short years ago. I started and quit a job, moved closer to the beach, and started paying a lot closer attention to my health — so much so that I founded a wearable tech company to help do it.
So while I may have been acquainted with the enormous responsibility of raising another human being in this world, I was unfamiliar with what exactly that meant for my health.
The short answer? A lot.
Biometrics are the definition of a telltale sign
Whether you’re a runner or smoker, parent or child, your biometrics can provide an insightful look in to how your body is affected by your daily activities and its responses to external factors.
Measuring the body’s biometrics lets us quantify what has otherwise been difficult to track. We all know what tired is, but do we know how the strain of being a parent compares to that of a long distance runner? Now, we kind of do.
I became interested in biometrics after college, when I used them to better inform what had otherwise been an overly-intense workout routine. I gave myself proper time to recover and saw the benefits immediately — training smarterinstead of harder eventually led to me shedding 65 pounds and being featured on bodybuilding.com. But my weeks of structure and routine was thrown into flux with parenthood two years ago, with my biometrics quickly following suit.
The second time was no different — sleepless nights, increased stress, and the additional responsibility proved equally taxing. Except this time, I had the benefit of biometric insights.
Biometrics of parenting
For my rendezvous with parenting a newborn, I’ll focus on how my Resting Heart Rate (RHR), Heart Rate Variability (HRV), and Blood Oxygen Saturation (Spo2) levels were affected; biometrics that are used by physicians and athletes to understand the strain and stress they’re putting on their body, and their body’s ability to recover from it.
RHR has been occasionally known to identify pregnancies before missed menstruation periods and HRV has been used to measure 4-day hangovers after a single night of drinking — it’s no wonder it also provides a telling look into the experience of becoming a new father.
How are biometrics measured?
Without falling down the rabbit hole that can be medical devices, top tier wearable devices use PPG sensors.
Red light PPG sensors (also called pulse oximeters) utilize light in near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and are widely used by doctors’ offices and hospitals, where accuracy is closely monitored and absolutely essential for medical use.
Our bodies do not absorb red light well which is actually a good thing; it allows the transmission to penetrate 10x deeper into multiple tissue layers in order to obtain a number of biometric signals (such as hydration, muscle saturation, total hemoglobin, and more) that a green light sensor can never see.
Heart Rate Variability
If you’re unfamiliar with HRV levels, it’s a measurement of the time intervals between each heartbeat — they’re a great indicator for stress, recovery, and a strained body.
You see, a healthy heart pumps only when the body calls for it. This creates a high variability in the time between each beat. When you’re tired and stressed, your heart beats more like a metronome, ie not good.
Athletes use HRV to measure recovery when they’re tired, as your body accommodates for needing to rest from an intense game or workout. As far as my body was concerned, it dealt with the sleepless nights of a new baby the same way it might an ultra marathon.
So how were my HRV levels affected by the newborn?
As you can see from the chart, the birth itself was quick and didn’t really have much of a toll on my body in the short term.
Then again, I wasn’t the one having the baby!
My amazing wife and I chose to have a home birth this time around, which ended up alleviating a lot of the stress of labor and — at least, in my opinion — contributed to a relatively average HRV reading the first few days.
What’s interesting is that you can clearly see my HRV free-falling afterward. The 2 weeks following the birth led to irregular sleeping and the additional stress of having another child to take care of.
This is denoted by that unhealthy looking red line, as my HRV’s 7 day rolling average dips well below my typical level. With my HRV peaking around 97 before the birth of the baby, the trough of 89 signifies an 8.2% decrease in just a matter of days — a quantifiable consequence of parenthood.
The sleep loss of being a father and CEO
The brunt of my biometric ailing came from sleep loss. Our 2 year old started to realize that she was no longer the only center of our attention with the homecoming of our newborn — and an understandable acclimation period ensued.
Our newborn was the easy one!
It was the fact that our toddler was having a tough time that made it the transition period stressful. Our oldest daughter went from sleeping through the night to constantly waking up and seeking attention. With my wife needing to tend to the baby, I was responsible for consoling our toddler, and while things have settled down since, my initial attempts seemed completely futile.
Not to be forgotten, I was managing the everyday logistics of running a wearable tech startup. Overseeing an engineering team and a direct-to-consumer marketing strategy are babies of their own!
My time was split between raising a newborn, a 2-year old, and a burgeoning, young startup — all of which demanded equal time and attention. My parental duties expanded, and my late night work sessions became later night work sessions.
But let’s not be mistaken! While my depleted HRV levels may signal otherwise, the sleepless nights have been more than worth it!
Resting Heart Rate
Similarly, Resting Heart Rate is another signifier of overall well-being. The measure of how fast the heart beats per minute (bpm) while standing, sitting, or lying down can be used to show signs of improved (or worsening) health. As we became more healthy, our hearts beat more efficiently and, in turn, less often, leading to decreased levels.
The average adult will have an RHR between 60–100 beats per minute, while athletes are likely to rest somewhere between 40–60 bpm.
While my RHR never crossed into the ‘significant change’ areas, which are used to alert users of any serious physiological changes, the graph parallels my HRV levels. January 3rd and 4th, a particularly involved week for parenting, saw a significant increase in my daily resting heart rate, and dramatically effected my 7 day trailing average.
Adapting to Fatherhood
The body is an amazing thing. While I still wasn’t getting doctor-recommended 8 hours a night, I was slowly able to settle into a routine. My HRV quickly followed, increasing until I reached my typical levels.
2 weeks after my HRV free-fall, my body starts adjusting to my new lifestyle of relatively sleepless nights and long days of work. You can see I start returning to within my established baselines.
Overall
My HRV still fluctuates day over day depending on the amount of sleep I get.
Raising a newborn and a sassy 2-year old will do that.
Not to mention a team of equally-sassy engineers.
The truth is that the everyday stress of building a company, becoming a father, and simply being human will naturally have negative consequences on your body — wearables are far from being able to ensure good health.
But the best way to improve something is to be able to measure it.
Having the ability to quantify and understand how my body is recovering and reacting to my lifestyle has become an everyday routine; it provides a level of insight that I can glean actionable items from.
Whether it’s a tough gym routine, a long week at work, or becoming a father, it’s amazing to quantify and monitor a body’s resiliency.
About the Author
Sameer Sontakey is a startup founder, part-time gym rat, and full-time father of two. Read more about hacking your health at biostrap.com or @biostrap.
