In Britain, a new study shows that more than a third of all women can’t identify their personal signs of fertility. Meantime, figuring out when you’re fertile can make or break your family planning success. So, it’s important to find a way that helps you understand your own cycle.
Colleen Biggs struggled through many years of infertility. As a result of her struggle, she found she had learned a great deal about the topic of fertility as she researched the subject and came to understand her own body’s responses. She decided to market her knowledge in the form of a unique ovulation predictor kit called Ovu-Trac, in 1996. Biggs is now president of OvumOptics, Inc., which manufactures the Ovu-Trac kit. Biggs’ goal was to provide women with a tool that really works to predict ovulation while also giving them a step up on fertility information that can aid them in better understanding their bodies.
Saliva Samples
A Spanish gynecologist, Biel Cassals discovered in 1969 that a woman’s saliva could be used to predict ovulation. Cassals found a correlation between a woman’s hormone levels during menstruation and the amount of crystallization found in her saliva at that time. The Spaniard discovered that this method was very accurate in predicting imminent ovulation.
Ovu-Trac works on Cassal’s principle and uses saliva samples to predict fertility. It is fast becoming recognized that saliva is more accurate as a diagnostic medium than blood or urine as the basis for lab tests. Today, most over-the-counter (OTC) ovulation predictor kits measure the amount of luteinizing hormone (LH) found in a woman’s urine sample. But even if a woman tests her urine every day, it’s very easy for a woman to miss the LH surge in up to 20% of her cycles. Plus, if she misses even one day of testing, it’s very possible she’ll miss that surge. The odds of her missing a surge go way up if she has an irregular menstrual cycle.
Most ovulation test kits tend to overlook the common occurrence of irregular cycles. Urine-based kits work on the premise that ovulation will occur on the 14th day of a woman’s menstrual cycle. But most women don’t have a textbook 28-day cycle. Too much focus on day 14 can have couples missing their fertile time altogether, and that’s a shame.
Personalized Chart
Ovu-Trac comes with an ovulation chart to aid a woman in creating a personalized and accurate chart on which she can record physical changes all through her cycle. This type of cumulative charted information helps a woman learn to correlate changes in her saliva with her physical changes as they occur during specific times of her cycle.
This unique ovulation prediction kit can also help couples to plan when it is most auspicious for them to have intercourse. At the same time, the kit can provide clues to difficulties such as a too-short luteal phase or lack of ovulation (anovulation). These extras can help a woman’s physician to diagnose and treat her fertility issues. While all of this may sound very complicated, Ovu-Trac is considered very user-friendly.