Fertility tracker celebrates milestone: First baby

Tech device proving it can reliably predict when to conceive

After years of trying to conceive, 32-year old Lizzie McGee gave birth to Jace last month. What made the baby boy special, beyond the amazing qualities of any new child: He was the first “Ava baby,” McGee’s reference to the Ava fertility tracker that’s one of several new, lower-cost tech solutions for fertility.

“It was amazing. He’s a healthy, sweet-tempered, beautiful baby boy,” McGee said over the phone from her home in St. George, Utah. “He’s a little miracle. There was such a long time that we didn’t even know if we would be able to have a baby.”

McGee is one of more than 7.4 million women in the United States who have struggled with getting pregnant and sought help with fertility issues — help that’s often arduous, expensive and emotionally draining. She’d been through it before and spent nearly two years and thousands of dollars conceiving her first child, which doctors told her could be her last. But she refused to give up.

Last year, McGee and 31-year old husband Sam started using the $199 Ava that shares similarities with popular exercise tracker Fitbit but focuses on fertility. Three months later, Jace was conceived.

“I would put on the bracelet at night, then sync it in the morning and find out exactly where I was in terms of ovulating. We had been trying for almost a year. After I started using Ava, it took three months to conceive.”

Worn only at night, the slim, lightweight silicone wristband tracks clues to a woman’s most fertile days. It measures resting pulse rate, skin temperature, breathing and other metrics — a total of nine physical indicators that could tip the scale toward a much better chance at a pregnancy. “Ava detects a woman’s entire fertile window, as opposed to ovulation predictor kits that only detect the last day or two best for conceiving, or the temperature method, which only confirms ovulation after the fact,” said Ava Sciences CEO & co-founder Lea von Bidder.

A clinical study published in Scientific Reports and conducted by the University Hospital of Zurich that used Ava and other wearable fertility trackers backs up the science behind the company’s claims, demonstrating that resting pulse rate is a good predictor of the fertility window.

“I love having the first ‘Ava Baby.’ I think it’s just so exciting,” McGee said. “I emailed Ava before I even told my husband.”

Von Bidder said Ava Sciences knows of at least 500 Ava pregnancies since its consumer launch in August 2016. “It’s just the beginning,” she said.

AVA SCIENCES The Ava bracelet can track a woman’s ovulation when she’s trying to conceive and other data when she is pregnant.