Timing is everything, according to a new study that found that women trying to get pregnant are twice as likely to be successful if they know exactly when they are ovulating.
The study was conducted in the United States but analyzed by British scientists and paid for by a Massachusetts-based company called Unipath Ltd. The company makes the only over-the-counter fertility monitor that measures two reproductive hormones – estrogen and luteinizing hormone. The peer-reviewed study was published in Fertility and Sterility, the journal of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
“It is very interesting,” said Dr. Nancy Jasper, an assistant clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan, who wasn’t part of the study. “The latest ovulation monitor that measures a byproduct of estrogen and luteinizing hormone opens the window for women to have more opportunities to get pregnant.”
Most monitors just measure luteinizing hormone, or LH, which surges on the brink of ovulation and tells women ovulation will occur in the next 24 to 36 hours. The Clearblue Easy Fertility Monitor lets women know when they are a few days away from ovulating, based on their urine, so they have more time to try and conceive. Jasper said the egg is usually viable for 48 hours. Sperm is still active for three to five days.
In the study, 305 of 653 female volunteers were randomly assigned to use the monitor. Everyone in the study was told that they could use any other aids to conception. Data was collected through daily diaries and sent to investigators. They were all attempting to get pregnant during the study period, which extended through two menstrual cycles.
The first cycle was used to record each woman’s estrogen and luteinizing hormone cycles and predict the best days for fertility during the second cycle. According to one of the study’s lead authors, Jayne E. Ellis and her colleagues, 22.7 percent of the women using the home monitor got pregnant within the two-month study compared with 14.4 percent of the women in the group who did not use it. Women had greater success conceiving if they had only been trying to get pregnant for six months.
“Many women don’t have a perfectly timed cycle,” Jasper said. “And for many women, timing is an issue in trying to conceive. That is why this type of monitoring is ideal.”
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