Evaluation of an activity monitor for use in pregnancy to help reduce excessive gestational weight gain.

We conclude that the activity monitor is sufficiently accurate for every-day use during pregnancy. The observed deviations can be accounted for and are acceptable from a statistical and an applied perspective because the positive and negative deviations that we observed cancel out to an accurate average energy expenditure over a day, and estimations during exercise are sufficiently accurate to enable coaching on physical activity. The positive and negative deviations themselves were relatively small. Therefore, the activity monitor can be used to help in preventing excessive weight gain during pregnancy by accurately tracking physical activity.