Ava for women with video 600x274

Typical story: you hold off getting pregnant until the “time is right.” And then it doesn’t happen. Just because we decide as couples we’re ready to conceive, doesn’t mean the pregnancy fairy is going to swoop down at your convenience. Barring organic fertility issues, you try loads of techniques counting days, tracking temperatures, possibly changing your diet; there can be no end to the suggestions and the frustration.

Ava Science, Inc.’s Ava for Women FDA-approved Class One medical device detects the fertile days in a woman’s menstrual cycle by tracking nine metrics. After a year of clinical testing at the University Hospital of Zurich, the Ava wristband was shown to detect an average of 5.3 fertile days per cycle with 89 percent accuracy. Ava measures resting pulse, skin temperature, heart rate variability, sleep, breathing rate, movement, perfusion, bioimpedance, and heat loss. These biometric indicators are all used in the Ava algorithm. The biometrics correlate with changing estradiol and progesterone levels, crucial hormones that determine a woman’s fertile window.

According to Ava Science, 70 percent of pregnancies occur during the same three cycle days. With the Ava wristband’s claimed ability to indicate 5.3 days per cycle the company says the chances of pregnancy increase when people know exactly which days are right and the extra days relieve some of the pressure. The wristband, which is only worn at night, sends the data to an associated smartphone (iOS only for now, Android later in 2016) so women can track levels and progress throughout the cycle. There are many single metric fertility detection or prediction aids, but Ava’s use of multiple metrics apparently increases its accuracy, and therefore its value.