Ep. 114: Which Fertility Monitors are worth it?

We live in a  modern world, where tons of information about our fertility is at our fingertips (in more way than one)! But not all fertility monitors are the same -- and some are definitely not worth the big bucks. Today's episode discusses which fertility monitors are worth it, even to women fully knowledgeable about their cycle and fertility through fertility awareness based methods or natural family planning. You'll hear ClearBlue Fertility Monitor, Ava, TempDrop, Kegg, Ovusense, Mira, and Inito Fertility Monitors all mentioned -- but which ones will be "worth it?"

SHOW NOTES: 
Inito Fertility Monitor Discount Code ($25 off): ref-4510de
Mira Fertility Monitor Discount Code (17% off): MBB17 

Interested in learning about fertility awareness based methods, or specifically the Creighton Model System? You're in the right place! 

• Register for Creighton Introductory Session: Register here for our next Introductory Session

Looking for ways to implement fertility awareness into your life and faith? Check out out most helpful resources: 

• Substack Newsletter (free)
• Website Resources (free)

Transcript

Caitlin: 0:06

Welcome to the Woven Well Podcast. I'm your host, Caitlin Estes. I'm a certified fertility care practitioner with a master of divinity degree. Each episode will cover a topic that helps educate and empower you and your fertility while honoring the deep connection your fertility has with your faith. Let's get started. Welcome back to the Woven Well Podcast. I just had to record an episode about the advanced fertility monitors that have come out in the last few years. No, I'm not talking about the Apple Watch. I do not recommend relying on your Apple Watch for anything fertility related . I'm talking about the type of fertility monitors that not only identify general shifts in your reproductive hormones, but can give you specific hormone levels and details that you can only otherwise get through lab draws. Are they worth it? What should they be used for? Which brands are the best? We're going to give a great introduction to these questions in today's episode. For those who aren't familiar with our podcast or myself, my name is Caitlin. I'm a certified fertility care practitioner. I serve women and couples full-time in educating, equipping, and empowering them to understand their fertility and advocate for their women's health concerns. I am all about helping women feel knowledgeable, confident, and at peace with the way they plan their families and get fertility answers. So of course I want my clients and all women to have the best resources available to them. Does that include fertility monitors? Let's see. First let's break down the different types of quote unquote fertility monitors out there. Generally, these are all tools that utilize some sort of technology to give you insight into your fertility or when you are fertile, but they are not all equal. For instance, some may think fertility monitoring apps go into this category, but if those apps simply ask you to input the date of your period, maybe some monthly symptoms or cervical mucus, if it's there or not, and then they spit out some estimated window of fertility run. These apps all rely on algorithms to guesstimate when your next period is due and by working backwards when your window of fertility will be. I realize we live in a world where algorithms really do have quite a lot of influence over us, but trust me, you do not want it to be responsible for your fertility choices. The charting apps or fertility apps are basically using the average cycle length from the past six cycles to find the average and assume that it's going to be the same for the upcoming cycle. Not only is this not how menstrual cycles work, you can have noticeable changes due to hormonal shifts, stressful cycles, or just normal reproductive changes, it's really no more advanced than the very first attempts at understanding a woman's cycle back in the early 1900s. Ever heard of the rhythm method? That's exactly what the rhythm method assumed. It would assume women would ovulate between cycle day 12 and 18, but it would incorporate the last 6 to 12 previous cycles to help. Guess what would happen in the cycle to come? We can do better than this now. We have so much more knowledge on how the reproductive cycle functions. We can even spot or anticipate those changes to our cycles by recognizing and interpreting the signs. We don't need to rely on averages or algorithms when we can read the specific messages our cycles are sending each month. Our reproductive system sends biomarkers that can be learned and tracked, like cervical mucus, temperature, cervical position--there are others. When taught by a trained instructor, women are able to confidently navigate their cycles, their health, their fertility by learning their own unique reproductive system. Behind the scenes at Woven Well, I teach women how to use a cervical mucus-only method, the Creighton model system, on a full-time basis, and I am thrilled with our 99.5% success rate. That's fantastic. Still, there are times when a woman may be interested in using a fertility monitor that can provide some additional support. Now, probably the most longstanding, most commonly used, fertility monitor is called the Clear Blue Fertility Monitor. It requires you to enter your period start date into the monitor , but then it routinely uses fertility test strips to track hormonal changes. Primarily, it looks for the shift in two hormones, estrogen and LH. We expect to see both of these hormones increase as ovulation approaches. So Clear Blue looks for an initial shift in estrogen, followed by a dramatic shift in LH. It has a nice little touchscreen even though it's not brand new. It's been on the market for a while and it shows you that initial shift in estrogen as days of high fertility and then it's going to notify you of your LH when it switches over to peak days of fertility. Clear Blue is going to keep track of data from previous months and even remind you to test through an alarm on the device. I think this is super helpful because you can only test during the first six hours of the day and you can only test once that day. You don't need to connect it to your phone or anything else, but you do need to purchase the monitor and purchase test strips for use each subsequent cycle. So probably the most unique aspect of the Clear Blue Fertility Monitor is that an entire method of natural family planning was developed around it: the Marquette method. The Marquette method does not only rely on this monitor, but it does strongly utilize it in estimating that window of fertility. For some women, they just love having an answer flashing on a screen for them--low, high or peak fertility, that's all they want. But the Clear Blue Monitor is no longer your only option. In recent years, many other types have been developed, and I think that says something about the increasing desire among women to understand and support their reproductive health without the use of hormonal birth control. But I digress. One development has been in the way to monitor specific reproductive biomarkers. So Tempdrop and Ava measure your basal body temperature while you sleep. Kegg and OvuSense examine your cervical mucus production. But honestly, none of those interest me. I truly believe that women are much better equipped to learn to understand their own biomarkers than they are to trust technology to do it for them. Technology fails. The arm band could get loose, the sleep schedule could shift, the app could malfunction. When you understand your own reproductive biomarkers, you don't have to worry about any of those things. You can monitor your own fertility from anywhere in the world at any time, and in any scenario, all you need is a skilled instructor to guide you to the point where you feel comfortable and confident. But there are fertility monitors that I still think can be worth it, even for those using fertility awareness or appreciation methods. Which are they? The ones that give you specific lab values for your reproductive hormones. This is incredible and I'm going to tell you why. Now as of this moment, the two that are on the market are Mira and Inito. I absolutely love that these monitors give you specific lab values for your hormones. That means they don't just tell you if your chances of pregnancy are high or low or peak. They tell you your FSH is four, estrogen is 150, progesterone is 15, LH 25. They give specific values that reflect your hormonal changes, and this information can be super helpful. It's no surprise that I don't think it's wise to rely on tech to explain your own body to you. I would much rather empower you to understand your own design and function. But one thing we can't do, know the exact level of our hormones, and before these devices came into the market, the only way to get this information was to have blood drawn and tested in the lab, dipping a test strip and waiting 10 minutes at home way easier and possibly far cheaper. So both of these monitors, Mira and Inito work similarly. If you search for information online, you're going to see the Battle of Inito versus Mira . All the articles about the pros and the cons between the two. I'm not trying to get into that battle. I think you can make the choice that feels best to you, but I will give you just a few things that I notice as some of the key features of both. Mira is standalone, while Inito connects with your iPhone. They both test FSH, estrogen, LH, and progesterone. Mira has separate tests for each of those hormones, so it does require more testing, but you can also choose to only test certain hormones. So if you only need to test progesterone, for instance, those are the only ones that you could buy. Inito has a super easy app interface. It lets you chart your values easily, reference your lab values really quickly. Mira is about a hundred dollars more expensive at the outset, and then test strips are slightly more expensive each month. Inito relies on your camera in order to read results, while Mira uses its own monitor. Again, there are other places you can find far more details about both of those, but I think those are the big picture things that may be most helpful. What I want to end with is when and for whom I think either of these is most helpful. I've said it before, I'll say it again. I would not count on even these advanced monitors to tell you the start and end date of your window of fertility. Maybe there should be an entire other episode as to why, but I'll just summarize it maybe by saying that the production of cervical mucus signals the start of your window of fertility, yet monitors can be a day or two behind in noticing the start because it's based on hitting specific estrogen values. Not everyone's estrogen values are the same, yet they can still have enough estrogen to begin producing fertile cervical mucus. Again, that should be an entire other episode. I'm sorry if that's confusing, but just trust me, there are some concerns. Instead, the women who will most benefit from using these are those who are tracking their own cycles with a fertility method, but who also want or need specific lab values for medical support. Maybe you suspect you have low progesterone, but your local OBGYN refuses to measure it or will only test it on cycle day 21 and you know that's not the best timing for your own cycle. These monitors will give you those exact values. Maybe you see cervical mucus and you know you're fertile, but you're concerned that your estrogen may be too low or too high. You'll be able to see exactly where your estrogen is with either of these monitors. Maybe you want to confirm that you've ovulated by testing just a few times to see if progesterone rises higher than three. These monitors can do that. Or maybe you need to have labs done for your medical provider, but it's impossible to get off of work or away from your kids multiple times, several days in a row throughout your cycle. These monitors can test any of those major hormones from the comfort of your home. That is empowering. There are some phenomenal OBGYNs out there, but even the best can sometimes use a little nudge in the right direction when it comes to specific lab results for an entire cycle that's something to work with. That's going to get their attention. And the health benefits from these monitors--I just feel like they're huge. There is so much potential to me. So honestly, again, I would not rely on them for family planning purposes, but I would utilize them in your effort to improve your health and partner with your medical providers. And if you have questions about fertility monitors or like to learn more about the fertility appreciation method I teach, the Creighton system, you can contact me directly through our website at wovenfertility.com. I really would love to hear from you. You're also always welcome to join our introductory session, which we offer online each and every month. You can register for that through the link in the show notes and also be sure to check out today's show notes because there may be a few discount codes available. I reached out to both Inito and Mira and if you're interested to see if there are discount codes and what they're for, make sure to look in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.