GETTING A RESULT
Are at-home fertility tests and apps worth it?
GOING to the doc feels like a capital-T Thing, and the growing popularity of athome fertility testing is understandable. But is testing your own eggs or your swimmers actually reliable? Apparently, it’s a mixed bag. “There is no good test for egg quality,” said Dr. Lynn Westphal, chief medical officer at fertility company Kindbody. “The best predictor of quality is age — younger eggs tend to be better quality.”
However, at-home tests can be done for the anti-Müllerian hormone, made by follicles that contain eggs in the ovaries. One such product is the Ovarian Reserve Test from LetsGetChecked ($139 at LetsGetChecked.com).
“When a woman has a good number of follicles in her ovaries, the AMH level will be high,” said Westphal, noting that the AMH level is a good predictor of how someone will respond to fertility medications, since women with a high AMH will usually produce a higher number of eggs.
But “ovarian reserve testing is not helpful in predicting reproductive potential or fertility in women who just want to check on their fertility,” said Dr. Barry Witt, medical director of WINFertility, headquartered in Greenwich, Conn. “It may be useful in women with infertility in identifying those who have low numbers of eggs.”
Cindy M.P. Duke of Las Vegas’ Nevada Fertility Institute calls athome tests “reasonable starting points” but warns they can be hard to interpret.
At-home sperm tests such as the SpermCheck Fertility Home Sperm Test ($43.99 at Walgreens) “give us some key information,” said Duke, “like, is there sperm, is the sperm number good and is this sperm moving well enough? Very few athome tests are good at determining sperm quality.”
Witt is similarly cautious: “In an andrology lab, semen is not only evaluated for sperm concentration and motility, but also for the acidity (pH), volume of the ejaculate, vitality (percentage of sperm that are alive) and sperm morphology (the size and shape of the sperm).”
He concedes that for men who are hesitant to go to a fertility specialist, these tests are for them.
Bottom line: “At-home tests may be best for couples who have just started trying to conceive to either reassure them with normal results or potentially to identify a problem a bit earlier.” But for couples who have been trying to conceive for more than a year or are over 35, “it may be best to go directly to a fertility specialist,” said Witt.
Fertility tracking apps and devices, including bracelets designed to estimate the time of maximum fertility in a woman’s menstruation cycle — such as the Ava Fertility Bracelet — ($279 at AvaWomen.com) have also become more popular in recent years. “Ovulation-detection devices, electronic monitors and devices for assessing cervical mucus or skin temperatures and pulse, are promoted as being helpful in determining the fertile window,” Witt said. “It makes some sense that accurate timing should be helpful.” However, there’s no evidence that monitoring for ovulation increases the chance of pregnancy when compared to frequent intercourse.
Plus, “fertility apps (or cycle tracking in general) are not helpful for women with very irregular or long menstrual cycles [where] ovulation either isn’t occurring or is happening very infrequently. In those cases, seeking out medical assistance is warranted.”
Witt further commented that low-tech methods of monitoring the menstrual cycle, like using a menstrual calendar or tracking cervical mucus, may work just as well, and won’t cost a penny.