Exhausted and disoriented, I arrive with storms on the banks of our dystopia to tell you the good news: apps are now birth control.
On Monday, the period tracking app Clue came out announced that it had received approval from the FDA to launch a digital birth control feature that will use statistical modeling follow closely users’ menstrual cycles to help them better understand their chances of fertility
While it declined to specify an exact price or launch date for the birth control, Clue – which currently numbers about 13 million users – noted that the feature would be considered a “premium” feature.
The app will function as a version of the fertility awareness methods of birth control, which often use key metrics, including menstrual start dates, body temperature, and changes in cervical mucus, to predict when ovulation will occur. But unlike other FAMs, Clue will rely on a single metric – the start date of your period – to project fertility. Using what is known as Bayesian modeling, the app will synthesize that data to create a “high risk” window over several days of the user’s cycle, in which there is an increased chance of pregnancy (there is also a “low risk” window). On high-risk days, users are advised to either not have sex at all or use alternative methods of contraception, such as condoms, to avoid pregnancy.
“It personalizes over time,” Clue’s chief medical officer, Lynae Brayboy, TechCrunch told“So if the individual enters their cycle day one, we can personalize the window of their high-risk versus low-risk days.”
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When used correctly, Clue claims to be 92% effective in preventing unwanted pregnancy with ‘typical use’ and 97% effective with ‘perfect use’. It’s the second time an app has recommended a statistical modeling method to gain FDA approval in U.S. markets: In 2018, the Natural Cycles app became the first, charging nearly $ 100 for a thermometer that users could use every morning to measure their to record body temperature.
Sometimes referred to interchangeably as ‘natural family planning’ or ‘the rhythm method’, FAMs has developed a bad reputation over time for his, and I paraphrase here, homeopathic woo-woo nonsense that makes some educated guesswork about fertility. In fact, the methods do solid efficacy rates when used correctly, but also require users to remain vigilant, accountable, and consistent – adjectives that may not describe the average 20-year-old user
It’s also worth noting that sShortly after the release of Natural Cycles in 2018, the app was sued for alleged cause 37 unwanted pregnancies in SwedenAnd Clue, even in its own words, is not for everyone: only people between the ages of 18 and 45 who have regular periods should use the app, and CEO Audrey Tsang said unsuitable users or those with cycles that become too irregular will be excluded from the app after a while.
But while Are FAMs still far from perfect science, IIt is also true that mainstream education about contraception is so dominated by messages with abstinence only those menstruating individuals have become almost complete separated from the nature of their own fertilityWhile hormonal drugs like the birth control pill and long-acting reversible birth control methods like intrauterine devices (IUDs) work perfectly for some, a lot of others are forced to tolerate the methods – and the many unsavory side effects that often accompany them – in a world where few alternatives are considered legitimate.
Her familiar dilemma for everyone that gets a point there you’re a little damned if you do and damned if you don’t The best advice, as always, is to just trust your gut and do what feels right.