Home ovulation kits have steadily been on the rise for the past several years. While these devices, kits, and apps are nice innovations, do they live up to their promise? Many women spend lots of money and time on these self-help items to avoid seeing a specialist, which may not always be wise. Particularly when there have been underlying medical conditions or family health concerns. So, when it comes to these types of innovations to detect ovulation to help women get pregnant, having the facts is critical.

Home Ovulation Kits

Before buying a fertility monitoring product of any kind, here are a few things to keep in mind.

1. Don’t Over-Complicate Things

For women 25 to 35 who have regular menstrual cycles, are 95 percent likely to be ovulatory. In short, if your period is normal every month, you really don’t have anything to worry about. Essentially, you just need to use a urine test kit to confirm the day on which you ovulate to help conceive.

Given the plethora of home ovulation kits on the market, for the most part, the least expensive is the best one. While each is a little different, most of them have a surge guide. So if you note a port signal from your kit, switch to another one and see if there is still a problem.

Based on the darkness of the color signal, you’ll know whether you have started your luteinizing hormone (LH) surge. The LH surge is responsible for causing ovulation to occur. Ovulation will occur within 36 hours after the surge begins.

Since the LH surge lasts for a few days, it’s not helpful to repeatedly test your urine to see if it gets better or darker. Once you have reached the threshold consistent with ovulation, save your test strips, stop testing and start timing. There is very limited added value to the expensive variations of this simple test.

Being able to time intercourse to optimize the chances of getting pregnant is optimal after you project when you will ovulate. So, try to have intercourse in evening and the next if you do the test in the morning and it is positive. If you do the test at night, time intercourse to next morning and the morning after.

2. If You’re Not Regular, It Will Be Difficult

Some women have irregular menstrual cycles, have menstrual periods that are more frequent than every 25 days. Or some longer than 35 days. In these cases, you may experience ovulatory dysfunction. However, some women with cycles in this window have no problems conceiving on their own.

You should count 15-16 days backwards from your shortest cycles and test for LH beginning on that day if you want to check when you’re likely to ovulate. For instance, if your cycle is typically 24 days long, use your home ovulation kit and start testing on Day 8 after the onset of your menstrual period. Or if your cycle is typically 34-38 days long, start testing on cycle day 28.

But for irregular cycles, this method can become frustrating and consumptive of your home ovulation kits. Generally speaking, having intercourse at least twice a week is adequate for most couples to optimal fertility.

3. Simplicity Is the Ultimate Sophistication

A recent article in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology tested a number of over-the-counter apps and websites that are available for a fee. These methods claim to allow a woman to identify her ‘fertile window’ with greater accuracy than a simple LH test. They are not regulated by the FDA and there is no need for proof of claim.

So you’ve guessed it. This could be a sign for buyer to beware. Most of these apps were created without input from medical personnel. They were also found to be inaccurate about 75 percent of the time! The most inaccurate results were seen for women whose menstrual cycle lengths fell out of the normal interval of 25-35 days.

To that end, it is possible to get misinformation from these self monitoring ovulation kits, and therefore we do not recommend them. Some women may feel that an app offers more control over the stressful process of try to conceive. In these cases, we highly recommend that you use one that has been backed by medical science.

The team at Riverwalk Women’s Health is here to listen, support, and help you start your family. Schedule your consultation.

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