This story is the first in a two-part series about digital birth control. Read part 2 here.
After decades of stagnant birth control research, users are demanding more convenient and safer options — particularly given the potential risks, such as breast cancer, depression and even changes in brain function, associated with hormonal methods.
For a small proportion of U.S. women, fertility awareness methods (FAMs) provide a hormone-free alternative and involve meticulous tracking of one’s fertile window, which is the number of days within the menstrual cycle in which a person can become pregnant. This can be determined via measurements such as basal (at-rest) body temperature, cervical mucus patterns and the luteinizing hormone (LH) levels in urine. During the fertile window, FAM practitioners commonly rely on withdrawal or barrier methods such as condoms to avoid pregnancy.
