July 22nd, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
We’ve written previously about some of the apps for tracking menstruation and PMS, but this new iPhone/Pad app for tracking ovulation is problematic.
iOvulation is an application that calculates the time of ovulation and generates your personal fertility calendar. Simply enter the length of your menstrual cycle and the date of your last period, and iOvulation will calculate your fertile days.
The web site suggests it useful both for trying to conceive and for trying to prevent conception. However, I wouldn’t recommend the latter, as its algorithm appears to predict ovulation based on dates of menstruation: “The ovulation dates are calculated based on normal menstruation calculation logic for women having regular periods.”
In other words, it perpetuates what Toni Weschler, author of Taking Charge of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement and Reproductive Health and Cycle Savvy: The Smart Teen’s Guide to the Mysteries of Her Body, labeled the two biggest myths about menstruation in this interview with Scarleteen: (1) the idea that ovulation occurs on Day 14, and (2) A normal menstrual cycle is 28 days.
Also of interest is how squeamish the creators appear to be about sex and reproduction: the web site refers to “unprotected i*********e” and notes that the probability of conception is calculated “based on your ovulation time and other factors such as lifespan of the egg and s***m”. (For those of you unaccustomed to the practice of concealing obscenity with asterisks, that’s “intercourse” and “sperm”.)
As someone who studies and teaches sociolinguistics and writes about menstruation, I’ve seen a lot of euphemistic language over the years. But marking intercourse and sperm as unfit for print is a first.
Tags: birth control pill, calendar, contraception, fertility, internet, iPad, sociolinguistics, technology
Posted in Birth Control, Internet, Language, ovulation | 5 Comments »
June 28th, 2010 by Elizabeth Kissling
Collage by Merlinprincesse | Creative Commons 2.0
Guest Post by Heather Dillaway, Wayne State University
I keep seeing news articles about a “new Iranian study” that hopes to better predict “age at menopause” for women, and the authors of this study supposedly discovered a “blood test” that will be able to “predict menopause” within the next few years. It is touted as a way to judge when women will be “done” or be at the “end” of “menopause” and also to predict by default when they will be at the “end” of their “fertile” years (so that maybe they can know when they have to pop out that first or last baby). After seeing so many references to this study over the last week and having studied how women feel about the “beginning” and “end” of menopause for the last ten years myself, I can’t just sit back and not critique the underlying assumptions that are part of this study and air some of the concerns that I have about this impending blood test. Continue reading...
Tags: blood test, fertility, guest post, Menopause
Posted in Media, Menopause, New Research, Newspapers | 15 Comments »
October 29th, 2009 by Chris Hitchcock
According to this article, a surprising number of women seeking infertility care don’t know when to effectively focus their efforts. Australian researcher (and SMCR member) Kerry Hampton asked women seeking infertility advice about the normal ovulatory menstrual cycle, and found that most women lack basic knowledge about the menstrual cycle, ovulation, and when the optimal time is to conceive.
A study of 204 women who attended assisted-reproduction clinics in Melbourne during 2007 and 2008 showed only 13 per cent had a good knowledge of the ”fertility window” in their monthly menstrual cycle when pregnancy can occur.
Fertility nurse specialist and Monash University researcher, Kerry Hampton, told the Fertility Society of Australia’s annual scientific meeting yesterday that 11 per cent of the women had no knowledge of the fertility window and 52 per cent had poor levels of awareness.
Ms Hampton said most of the women had been trying to conceive for one year or more when they were surveyed, and that if they had of known more about natural conception, they would have had a better chance of success.
”A lot of these women were not able to optimise their chance of natural conception because they didn’t understand the window,” she said. Continue reading...
Tags: fertility, ovulation
Posted in Menstruation | 2 Comments »
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