CAN AN APP REPLACE BIRTH CONTROL?

WITH MUM OF TWO AND SOCIAL COMMENTATOR ANGELA MOLLARD

Would you rely on an app to stop yourself from getting pregnant? That’s the question women are asking themselves as fertility apps grow in popularity.

By tracking your menstrual cycle the apps claim to be able to calculate when you’re fertile or ovulating and many women are turning to them as a more natural means of birth control.

Some apps ask you to take your temperature every day while others measure cervical fluid or hormones in the urine. Recently one of the most popular fertility-tracking app, Natural Cycles, was cleared for marketing as a contraceptive by the US Food and Drug Administration. But are apps effective and can you rely on them not to get pregnant?

While fertility apps, including the popular Clue, which has 10 million users in 200 countries, can increase a woman’s awareness of her menstrual cycle, many doctors are encouraging they be used alongside another contraception such as condoms.

Sexual health expert Dr Karen Osborne is not convinced of the apps’ reliability. ‘The difficulty with these methods of contraception is that there’ll be some women who are very regular and have obvious signs of when they’re ovulating and not fertile,’ she says. ‘Then you’ll get other women who perhaps have very irregular cycles or don’t have signs of ovulation.’

Other doctors believe the growing desire to control fertility by more natural methods needs to be taken seriously but that women should be encouraged to use methods like the IUD which is 99 per cent reliable. Whatever they choose, women should undertake comprehensive research before they adopt any method of contraception. Likewise, if they do choose to use a fertility app, they should be open to the possibility of getting pregnant, says one medic.

‘WHAT I LIKED ABOUT FULL HOUSE — AND WHAT I TRY TO DO IN MY HOUSE — IS THAT WE DIDN’T TALK DOWN TO OUR KIDS. THEY ALWAYS RESPECTED US AND WE RESPECTED THEM AS HUMANS, NOT JUST LITTLE KIDS. SO, I WILL TRY TO DO THAT WITH MY CHILD. John Stamos, actor and new dad.