Member of the Mucus Ladies
On this article, I would like to clarify a term that we commonly use within our fertility advisory practice.
It is co-developed by the owner of the NeoFertility clinic in Ireland, Dr Phil Boyle.
For anyone who are with the NeoFertility clinic, for any kind of treatments, we strongly recommend you use the Chart Neo app to track your menstrual cycles.
This awesome app allows you to track a wide range of biomarkers, or observable signs, that are indicative of their reproductive health. The observables are like the pieces in a big puzzle, which together inform the bigger picture of your reproductive health.
Menstrual cycle starting with your period
Hormonal levels are messengers associated with fertility and infertility
Cervical mucus reflect how well the body responses to the hormone signals
Basel Body Temperatures, including shifts predictions, reflect how well the body responses to the hormone signals
Symptoms - there are close to 20 standard symptoms (e.g. sleep disturbances, abdominal pain or cramps, painful period, mood swing and many more) that you can track on any day across the cycle, on a scale from 0 (default) to 10 (most severe)
Fertile-day prediction - you do not need to know any of the rules that define a fertile day; this app does this hard work for you!
And important for medical assessment, you can also capture a range of test results throughout your menstrual cycle:
Blood tests: FSH, AMH, LH, TSH, Progesterone, Oestrodial, and indeed anything else you may wish to add
Clearblue fertility monitor readings - low, high and peak
Urine LH surge - positive or negative
Follicle Tracking Ultrasound - follicle, cyst, unruptured follicle, full ruptures x1 and x2
Pregnancy test - positive or negative
Plus anything else that may be coming along in the future!
You can enter all of the observations already listed above.
In addition, if you have serious reasons to avoid, you can switch on a stricter Fertile-day prediction algorithm:
By choosing to include the Calendar Rule, data from the past 12 cycles will also be used to identify the start of your fertility in the current cycle.
This usually results in a smaller infertile window prior to ovulation, thus minimises the chance of unplanned pregnancies.
The app is compliant to regulatory requirements in the US (HIPPA) and in Europe/UK (GDPR) and your data is all secured.
Your data will never ever be sold either.
You can elect to share (and un-share) you data in the app with your fertility advisor, as well as the NeoFertility clinic.
As a result there is no more pieces of paper being insecurely passed via emails.
The advisory and clinic processes that support you work seamlessly with this app.
This allows our advisors to review your chart in real-time basis, and to respond to any time-sensitive questions you may have very quickly.
You can imagine the app as a hold-all; you can throw almost anything into it.
The Chart Neo app speaks the collective science behind all of the fertility-awareness based methods.
Therefore, with the Chart Neo app, you can track your cycle, in your method of choice: Creighton Model FertilityCare system, the Billings Ovulation Method, Sympto-Thermal Method, Marquette Method etc.
We highly recommend the use of the NeoFertility Method with the Chart Neo app.
The Chart Neo app is available here and in 10 languages, inc the more popular English, Spanish and Portuguese.
The app costs less than USD10 or EUR10 a year. Your app comes free for the first year if you have a monthly subscription with us.
While the Chart Neo app can be used without the support of a fertility advisor, i.e. on a solo basis, you will be more successful with a fertility advisor as your partner, especially at the beginning of your journey.
It is important to note that
A mobile app can be created by anyone, including you and me.
Fertility apps are generally exempted from the oversight of a national medical regulator (e.g. FDA).
Body literacy across the general population remains low despite the proliferation of fertility apps.
Many apps are supported by "community" forums (suggesting personal opinions or experience) and not trained experts (meaning published and peer-reviewed research results)
Our fertility advisors are there to help you become more fertility-aware and body-literate. We offer you what the app cannot, namely a body of knowledge on how to interpret and use the data in the app correctly.
Some of the key topics we cover in our teaching sessions include:
Human reproductive health - what is normal and not normal.
How to observe and record your fertility observations correctly
How to interpret your fertility observations
If you are trying to avoid pregnancies naturally - the Avoiding instructions that will help you use your infertile days correctly
If you are trying to conceive, with or without treatment - the techniques and tips that have been tried and tested.
In addition, our subscription clients receive our continuous time-sensitive support throughout their cycles. You will get help when you need it most, and not only at the time of our meetings.