About 90 percent of all couples that use no birth control conceive within one year's time. However, for some older couples, waiting that long for Junior's arrival can mean unnecessary infertility scares.
For anxious baby-makers, Ovuline has released an iOS app called Ovuline Smart Fertility. By combining four million data points from over 70,000 women with input from wearable devices like FitBit or Withings, Ovuline Smart Fertility claims that it can give you precise information about when you're ovulating.
Knowing when you're ovulating allows you to schedule a "productive" lovemaking session with your partner because his sperm can meet with your egg at a time and place conducive to fertilization.
Ovuline is a Massachusetts-based startup that is about a year old. CEO Paris Wallace says that women take longer to get pregnant because they're not accurately predicting their ovulation schedules. Wallace adds that Smart Fertility can get women pregnant within 60 days, or about three times the national average.
Currently, the app is free because Ovuline wants to collect as much data from app users as possible. Factors including blood pressure, body weight, cervical fluids, menstrual cycles, body temperature and sexual intercourse can help the app to predict your most fruitful time.
Dr. Alison Zimon, a reproductive endocrinologist at Boston IVF, suggests that women over 35 shouldn't worry about infertility for at least six months. The National Infertility Association reports that one-third of infertility can be attributed to male factors, and about one-third can be attributed to female factors.
"In about 20 percent of cases infertility is unexplained, and the remaining 10 percent of infertility is caused by a combination of problems in both partners," the Association explained. Overall, infertility affects about 7.3 million Americans.
If you use Ovuline's Smart Fertility app that is powered by big data, you may become pregnant long before you start to worry about whether or not you're fertile. That is, if you and your partner can get used to working on a tight schedule.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
