Exhausted and disoriented, I arrive hurled by the storm on the margins of our dystopia to tell you the good news: apps are now birth control.
On Monday, the Clue period tracking app announced who has received FDA authorization to launch a digital birth control function that will use statistical modeling to closely monitor Commercial’ menstrual cycles to help them better understand your fertility chances.
Although he declined to list an exact price or release date for birth control, Clue – who currently has about 13 million users – noted that the function would be considered a “premium” feature.
The app will work as a version of the Fertility Awareness Methods for birth control, which normally use important metrics, including period 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 its period – to project fertility. Using what is known as Bayesian modeling, the application will synthesize this data to predict a “high risk” window over several days of the user cycle, during which there is an increased likelihood of pregnancy (there is also a “low risk” window). On high-risk days, it is recommended that users abstain completely from sex or use alternative contraceptive methods, such as condoms, to prevent pregnancy.
“It gets personalized over time,” Clue’s medical director, Lynae Brayboy, said TechCrunch. “So, as the individual puts it on their first day of the cycle, we are able to customize the window of their high-risk days versus their low-risk days.”
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When used correctly, Clue claims to be 92% effective in preventing unwanted pregnancies in ‘typical use’ and 97% effective in ‘perfect use’. It is the second time that an app has touted a statistical modeling method to receive FDA approval in U.S. markets: in 2018, the Natural Cycles app became the first, charging about $ 100 for a thermometer that users could use to measure body temperature every morning.
Sometimes referred to as “natural family planning” or “the rhythm method”, FAMs developed a bad reputation over time for being, and I’m paraphrasing here, woo-woo homeopathic nonsense that makes a well-founded conjecture about fertility. In fact, however, the methods have solid effectiveness rates when used correctly, but it also requires users to remain vigilant, responsible and consistent – adjectives that may not describe the average 20 year old user.
It is also important to note that sshortly after the launch of Natural Cycles in 2018, the app was sued for allegedly causing 37 unwanted pregnancies in Sweden. And Clue, even if he admits it, is not for everyone: only individuals between 18 and 45 years old who have regular periods will be allowed to use the app, and CEO Audrey Tsang said that ineligible users or those with cycles that become too irregular will be blocked from the application after a while.
But while FAMs are still a long way from being a perfect science, Iit is also true that mainstream education on birth control has become so dominated by abstinence only messages in that period, individuals became almost entirely divorced from nature of your own fertility. Although hormonal medications such as the birth control pill and long-acting reversible methods, such as intrauterine devices (IUDs) work perfectly for some, several others are forced to just tolerate the methods – and the countless unpleasant side effects that often accompany them – in a world where few alternatives are considered legitimate.
That is a family member dilemma for anyone that makes a final point, at that you’re kind of damned if you do and damn if you don’t. The best advice, as always, is just trust your instinct and do what feels right.