Why We Need to Talk About Infertility

You’ve probably either heard about a friend whose had difficulty conceiving or maybe you’ve experienced the struggle yourself.  According to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, infertility is defined as the inability to achieve pregnancy after one year of unprotected intercourse.  Often, when we hear the word “infertile” it’s assumed the couple is “one in a million” or waited too long to make the decision to have a baby. But let’s clear the air here.

That’s simply not the case.

In fact, at least one in seven couples initially has difficulty conceiving. Moreover, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, even for young fertile couples, the chance of conception is between only 20% and 37% during the first 3 months. That seems awfully low. But before you get worried, this isn’t us telling you that you’ll never conceive.  Instead we’re going to let you know where to get help.  And more specifically, how we can help you.

You’ve probably used or heard of the urine kits and you’ve made your regular visits to the ob/gyn.  But have you ever tried to measure your basal body temperature, or BBT?  BBT is the lowest temperature reached during sleep and one of the few  natural ways to detect when a woman begins to ovulate and therefore when she can actually get pregnant. By monitoring fluctuations in your BBT over your entire cycle, you can see a 0.5º to 1.0º Fahrenheit spike around the time of ovulation. Each daily temperature change reflects a hormonal change within your body as it relates to your menstrual cycle. The result of measuring this every day? Well take a look at the chart below – hint hint the big spike in the middle reflects ovulation. So, what we’re saying is: noticing the small spike in your BBT = higher chance of knowing when the best time for conception is. For real. But, this comes with a big BUT!

One of the several issues with tracking your own BBT is that an accurate chart requires immediatemeasurement in the morning, before you move a muscle.  So 7am comes along and you have to lightly nudge your hubby to “GRAB THE THERMOMETER…STAT!” because you don’t want to ruin the measurement.  Another issue: BBT is thrown off if you get up to go the bathroom.  ANOTHER issue: BBT is thrown off if you have an irregular sleep schedule, too. And lastly, true Basal Body Temp has been found to occur 30 minutes prior to waking up in the first place! So unless you’re some kind of sorcerer that can stick a thermometer in your own mouth during sleep, you’re gonna need to find a way around this.

Now I know what you’re thinking.  It seems like BBT works, but it’s too difficult to actually try and accurate results are hard to get.  That was true before the iFertracker.

The iFertracker is a new technology; a wearable thermometer that tracks BBT throughout the night collecting 20,000 temperature measurements.  Raiing Medical’s advanced algorithm lets you go to sleep whenever you want, wake up whenever you want, and get up in the middle of the night without ruining your BBT.  Our easy-to-use smartphone app syncs via Bluetooth every morning to create a shareable, accurate BBT chart for you, your significant other, and your doctor.  All you have to do is wear the thermometer and sync to the app.

Really— that’s it.  Find out more about how the iFertracker can help you conceive by clicking [here].