Smartphone Fertility Apps Not Effective in Planning and Preventing Pregnancy, New Study Shows

Women often rely on their Smartphone apps to monitor their fertility, but a new study involving more than 90 fertility apps shows that it is not very effective and accurate in preventing and planning pregnancies.

The study, to be published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, has recommended against fully relying on fertility apps to avoid or achieve pregnancy.

According to the report from Medical News Today, most of the fertility apps available for download tack the menstrual cycle of women to pinpoint the exact day of ovulation, when women are most likely to get pregnant. Other apps monitor the basal body temperature (BBT). BBT normally increases two to three days prior to ovulation. On the other hand, some downloadable fertility apps track the cervical mucus of women. Women that are at the peak of their fertility period often have cervical mucus.

For the study, researchers analyzed 95 fertility apps available for download through iTunes, Google and Google Play Store. Among those, 55 apps are either had a disclaimer stating that it should not be used to avoid pregnancy or failed to use an evidence based fertility awareness-based methods (FABM).

The researchers were then left with 40 apps to review. Using a rating system employed by the Family Practice Management, the researchers rated each app on a five-point scale for 10 criteria considered to be important for avoiding pregnancy.

Only 30 apps successfully predicted the fertile days of the user, including six apps that had either a perfect score on accuracy or no false negatives. On the other hand, apps that did not predicted the fertility days of its users scored high on accuracy if it required its users to undergo training in an FABM before use.

Based on their findings, researchers strongly advise women not to solely rely on fertility apps to prevent or plan their pregnancy. Women who wish to use these apps are recommended to seek first their health care provider or trained family planning facilitator before finding an app that is rated four or more on mean accuracy review.