Scientist develops astrology app to help women conceive
IN THIS day and age, there is an app for everything – but what about an app that could help women struggling to fall pregnant know the best time to try conceive by interpreting the alignment of the couple’s astrological charts?
With 17 years of practising fertility astrology behind her, renowned South African astrologist Nicola Smuts Allsop has developed just that.
An app that can isolate up to three astrologically fertile times in the year.
Smuts Allsop said the app goes live on iTunes during February, coinciding with Reproductive Health Month and Pregnancy Awareness Week.
According to the Infertility Awareness Association of SA, one in six couples is battling with infertility in the country.
“The fertility journey is harrowing, you feel so out of control… Some couples are perhaps not infertile, they are just having their treatments or trying at the wrong time. You can midwife couples through the stars”, Smuts Allsop said at the launch of the app at the Belmond Mound Nelson on Friday.
Around 30% of couples have “undiagnosed” fertility, meaning they are healthy but unable to conceive, either naturally or with medical intervention.
According to Smuts Allsop, the app can be used for planning in vitro fertilisation (IVF) dates or by those just wanting to know their fertile times. At the launch, couples who had consulted Smuts Allsop and had successfully conceived, described the process of infertility treatment as expensive and emotionally draining.
The couples had consulted Smuts Allsop prior to the development of the app, and swore by her techniques and the astrological science behind them.
Young, in-love, newly married and seemingly healthy, Jacque and Raylene de Villiers thought conceiving a baby would come naturally and quickly.
But when it didn’t happen after six months of trying in 2006, Raylene, 37, knew something was wrong.
Diagnosed with a polycystic ovary and Jacque with a low sperm count, the odds were stacked against them.
And after six IVF cycles and intralipid injections and more than R500 000 later in fertility treatments, the pair thought they had tried it all and were ready to consider adoption.
“Being a scientist by profession, I had spent five years trying to find a way around this… we had isolated ourselves as a couple from friends… it was a very lonely time. Friends would invite us out and we wouldn’t go anywhere because we didn’t want to see children,” Raylene said.
The couple met Smuts Allsop through a donor egg programme and after they had consulted her, she gave them the date of April 2010 to try and conceive. And on their seventh IVF cycle, the couple conceived triplets.
The couple now have four children, three girls and a boy who was conceived 17 months after the triplets.
Several other couples also gave emotional testimonials on their journey to fertility and the life-changing advice and guidance they received from Smuts Allsop.
Now that expertise has been absorbed into app format.
Regarding the app, Smuts Allsop explained, “It may come as a surprise to most, but there are astrologically only two or three times in a year during which fertilisation, whether natural or assisted, is optimised. There is far more to conception than just the meeting of sperm and egg.
“The app works with cycles and timing, which is where astrology steps in.”
All you do is download the app, fill in your birth details (time, date and place), answer a few questions, and submit. Your two or three fertile periods for the next year appear immediately.
The app will be downloadable later this month and costs around R174 per download on iTunes, and GooglePlay from March.