WOMEN have been tracking their periods as a means of natural family planning for hundreds of years. But a new app, Natural Cycles, is advertising itself to be more effective than the pill- minus the side effects. But, putting your trust wholeheartedly into a piece of tech could be an unnecessary risk.
Today, the choice of contraception on offer is staggering and support for women’s choice is unparalleled. Currently there are 15 different methods of contraception available in the UK and depending on circumstances there is often an appropriate method suitable for everyone.
Natural Cycles is a sympto-thermal method of natural family planning by means of monitoring body temperature and cervical mucus. It is classified by the NHS as being 99% effective. However, is it too good to be true?
Understanding your menstrual cycle and how to take daily readings of your body temperature is important, but these measurements alone are not a reliable fertility indicator. Women’s cycles are unpredictable and can be affected by everything from stress to the common cold, and sperm can survive for days in the fallopian tubes.
It seems that apps like Natural Cycles could be the newest way of profiting from the modern woman’s desire to be in control of her own sexual choices. The message is clear: use this app and you can pinpoint exactly when you will be ovulating. Through algorithms this app will become personally tailored to you and your menstrual cycle. Although this sounds ideal, it’s unrealistic. Life has other plans and just because your app assures you it’s fine and that you won’t become pregnant, the reality is there’s a one in four chance that you still can.
Regardless of the positive praise shown in reviews (4.6), the app has recently been hit by controversy after 37 out 668 abortions in a hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, were for women who had used the Natural Cycles as a means of contraception.
This method might work for women who have a more relaxed outlook on falling pregnant or who are using it to determine when in their cycle they are most fertile because they are trying to become pregnant, however for those who are trying to outright avoid this, it seems like ‘Vatican roulette’.
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