Trending Now
Catholic Lane
You are at:»»MyFertilityMD App Review

MyFertilityMD App Review

4
By on Featured, Marriage, Reproductive Technology, Tips, Tools, Tech

I’ve been looking for an app to chart my body’s fertility for quite a while. Remember my begging? No? Well, I assure you, I even used this space to try to find something, and never had any luck.

My days of searching are over, though, and I’m excited to share a brand-new app with you: MyFertilityMD.

 

I’ve been using this for one cycle, so I’m very much a novice user, but I was so excited about it, I just had to write about it and share it here.

Natural Family Planning–or, as the MyFertilityMD folks have repackaged it, Organic Family Planning–teaches you to pay attention to and keep track of your body’s signs too.

When I say this is an answer to a prayer of mine, I’m not exaggerating. And, from what I’ve learned in my communications with the founders, it’s an answer to their prayers too.

Easy to use

myfertilitymd-chartnow

I did spend the time to watch the introductory videos. For one thing, I was curious. For another thing, it’s been a while since our NFP class (which was a correspondence class, not an in-person class). And for something else, I haven’t been charting for about two years.

The videos are easy to find and they’re short. They’re also well-done, professional and informative.

When you have questions, there are easy to find and easy to use FAQ sections, or, if you’re lazy (like cough me), you can send a message through the app or the website.

And using it each day? It’s less work than putting on my socks in the morning. The app even gives me a reminder at the time I set it for.

Answers = found

 

Not sure if this sign you’re having is normal? Worried about something? Just confused by your body?

Or any number of other things…there are real doctors (people with MD after their name, not theologians, mind you) on hand. They’ll look at your charts, answer your questions, pass you the coffee–oh, wait, I’m getting my apps confused…

The FAQs and instructional videos are very good, too. (Yes, I already mentioned that, but it bears repeating.)

In the event that you want to share your chart with your own medical professional or someone else (like your spouse?), you can easily export them.

Inexpensive

The cost of classes? Between $100-200. The cost of ongoing learning? I don’t know.

Right now, the app costs $4.99 in iTunes. That’s a special introductory price, and I think this app is worth at least three times that (or more).

Best of the best

myfertilitymd-chart

Using this app (and the method behind it) involves no chemicals. No pills. So it’s completely green in all the best ways.

And hey! Being in line with Church teaching doesn’t hurt anything, either!

It’s based on over ten years of medical research and the wisdom of Natural Family Planning, but it goes beyond that, because incorporating the on-the-go and instant updating abilities of the web and devices like iPhones changes the game completely.

Whether you’re into Creighton or sympto-thermal or Billings or any of the other types of NFP, it doesn’t matter. This app supports them all. And if you don’t know what that sentence just meant, then no worries. This is the app for that.

If you find yourself not sure about this whole NFP thing, this is a way to start. You’ll learn about your body, and in doing that, you’ll learn a lot about both yourself and your relationship with your family. (Sounds crazy, I know, but there you have it.)

Share.

About Author

If Sarah Reinhard isn’t off hiding somewhere with a good book, chances are she’s chasing a toddler or a dog (or sleeping, because every mom can use a nap!).  She enjoys the idiosyncrasies of life in an old farmhouse in central Ohio with her husband and children.  She has been blogging at SnoringScholar.com since 2006 and contributes regularly at CatholicMom.com and Faith & Family Live.  She can be heard weekly on Catholic Moments and Catholic Foodie and periodically on the Faith & Family Live and Uncommon Sense podcasts.

Related Posts

  • Stacy

    Sadly, it isn’t available for Android devices.

    • maryaj

      Shortly it will be available in Mobile App format, so any smart phone can access as long as there is internet access.

  • sneakierbiscuit

    You left out a really important part of a review of an NFP app: what method the app is using to provide its assessment of your fertility status. Every NFP app with a function to display fertility will use certain rules and algorithms to determine what result it gives you based on the charting input you put in.
    So… what method is it using? Creighton? Marquette? Billings? A form of STM? You write that the app “supports” all the methods, but it’s actually impossible for a single app to provide an accurate presentation of all of these method’s rules and fertility assessment algorithms, since they differ, unless it’s 3+ apps within an app. For example, even within STM, different methods analyze temp patterns and jumps differently. So, while you may be able to chart like you usually would in the method you use, I don’t see how there’s any guarantee that the result the app gives would align with the assessment your own method would provide. And if you’ve chosen your particular method based at least in part of its proven and published efficacy statistics, the user should be made very aware that whatever rules/algorithms this app is using may not result in the exact same efficacy.
    The Billings rules for observing and assessing mucus peak differ quite significantly from Creighton, too. For example, a true peak will require a build up of mucus through 3 stages, and a sudden drying up (within 3 days) of peak. If there’s a slow “breakdown” of mucus the user is supposed to assume that what occurred was a false peak. Thus, they’d be using pre-peak rules for abstinence (if avoiding pregnancy), not post-peak. There is no such requirement in Creighton. By the look of the green babies up there in the image of the app, it seems it’s based on a Creighton-like determination of mucus and fertility.
    So…

    I’m sure it’s a lovely app – particularly for people who aren’t following any particular, well-established method. But the app itself must be following a method; whether it’s one of the well-established ones or some new method with unproven efficacy, in neither case will it have the capacity to *fully* support all methods.

    • maryaj

      If you purchase the app, you will have a better idea of how it works. If you are only going by the Mucus, Lubrication, and Bleeding, this method is closest to Creighton Model,…but there is a Large number of combinations of methods within the app. That is why it is so comprehensive. The app was designed based on the scientific literature of each bio-marker and years of experience with each current known NFP method. The App takes into consideration every possible combination of Mucus plus Ferning, Mucus plus Temperature, Mucus plus Cervical observation, Mucus plus Fertility Kit, Mucus plus Clear Blue,…or any combination of all more than 2 or 3 biomarkers added on. The efficacy tests are being run. However, there are so many combinations, that with the addition of each biomarker, the efficacy will likely go up as the tolerance for risk of pregnancy will go down. So you can start with the basic platform of the Mucus based observations. We know that the current mucus based NFP methods are extremely effective. MyFertilityMD isn’t taking any risks with people’s fertility and follows the scientific principles that have guided those who have developed past methods.