Fertility
Fertile Days Your Ovulation Test Kits Miss
Eloise Edington | 26 Jul 2021
While ovulation detection kits can do wonders to help couples who are trying to conceive naturally, is there anything else you could be monitoring to pinpoint the most accurate time for conception?
Figuring out which days of your fertility window offer the best chance of conception is vital. There are multiple ways that you can identify when you are ovulating yourself, but you can also track your cycle with an app for accurate and reliable data. To make sure you get the best data about your fertile window, Fertility Help Hub want to introduce you to the Ava Fertility Tracker. The FDA cleared bracelet, worn only at night, identifies the opening and closing of your fertile window.
Read on to find out how to track your fertile days and regain control of your fertility. Also, for a chance to win a complimentary AVA fertility tracking wristband, enter our giveaway here.
Words by Ava
The Importance of Timing
Getting pregnant is all about timing. Sure, you can just have sex and hope it results in a baby, but unless you’re having sex at least every other day throughout your cycle, it’s a bit like throwing darts with a blindfold on.
The “bullseye” when it comes to conceiving quickly is your fertile window: the five days before ovulation and the day of ovulation.
Six days may seem like a lot, but not all six of those days carry the same chances for conception. Depending on which of those six days you’re having sex, the odds may be as high as 25 – 30 percent, or just barely higher than zero percent.
Ovulation Day May Not Be The Most Fertile Day
So, which days are best? Three major studies have tried to answer this question:
The best days from this study are the day of ovulation (32.5 percent chance of conception) and the day before ovulation (30 percent chance of pregnancy).
Post-ovulatory aging of the human oocyte and embryo failure
This study, by the same authors as the previous one, found that the pregnancy rate is higher with ovulation-day sex, but the chemical pregnancy rate is also higher. The best days from this study are two days before ovulation (30 percent chance of conception) and the day before ovulation (27.5 percent chance of conception)
Daily Fecundability: First Results from a New Data Base
A larger multicenter European study found the best days are three days before ovulation (27 percent chance of conception) and two days before ovulation (24 percent chance of conception).
Bottom line: Taken together, the data from these studies demonstrates that the best days for conception may be the three days just BEFORE ovulation.
How to Track Your Fertile Days
What’s the best way to track your fertile days? Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of popular methods:
LH Urine Tests
These ovulation tests detect the surge in luteinizing hormone (LH) that occurs about 24 hours before ovulation.
The downside of these tests, is that by the time they turn positive, your most fertile days may already be behind you. It is best to think of a positive LH urine test as the beginning of the end of your fertile window.
Cervical Mucus Monitoring
Your cervical mucus changes consistency as you approach ovulation. As estrogen levels in your body increase, the water content of your cervical mucus increases. You may notice it becoming clearer, slippery, and stretchy for several days before you ovulate.
Learning to identify fertile cervical mucus can take some practice. Some women produce more cervical mucus than others, and if you don’t produce much, this method can be harder to use.
Basal Body Temperature Tracking
After ovulation, progesterone levels increase. This causes your basal body temperature (BBT) to increase slightly. You can track this change in temperature by taking your temperature with a specialised thermometer. You must take your temperature every morning upon waking, before moving or talking. When you see a sustained increase in temperature, you know that ovulation has occurred.
The major downside of this method is that by the time you see the temperature rise, ovulation has already occurred and you are no longer fertile. It’s a good way to confirm ovulation after the fact—not a good way to identify fertile days in the moment.
The Ava Fertility Tracker
The Ava bracelet is the first and only FDA-cleared wearable fertility tracking device that is clinically proven to identify both the opening and the closing of the fertile window. You wear the bracelet while you’re sleeping, collecting data on your temperature, resting heart rate, heart rate variability, breathing rate and skin perfusion. When you wake up, you sync to the Ava app to see your fertility status.
The app displays your 5 best days to try for a baby, updating them in real time based on your physiological data from the night before.
One of the major advantages of the Ava Fertility Tracker is that it measures changes related to the increase in estrogen levels, which occur at the very beginning of the fertile window. This allows it to detect more fertile days than LH tests (since LH does not increase until the fertile window is almost over).
There are plenty of different ways to track your menstrual cycle and detect ovulation, but they vary in accuracy and ease of use. If you’re somebody that prefers precise, research-backed data about tour fertility and appreciates the ease of a wearable device, then hopefully this article has been helpful.
If you would like to try tracking your fertile days through the Ava bracelet device and app, which provides specific information that’s personal to you, then purchase the Ava Fertility Tracker here. For £20 off your purchase, use code FERTILITY20 at checkout.
For a chance to win a complimentary AVA fertility tracking wristband, enter our giveaway here.
For discounts on fertility gadgets and more, visit the FHH shop.
