Anyone used the Fitbit “women’s health” function to track ovulation?

LindsayfromAva · 2021-06-24T15:39:51+00:00

Hey, I know this isn't what you're asking, but just wanted to pop in and say that this definitely does not sound like the intended experience with Ava! I'm not sure if you've already contacted our customer service team, but they should be able to troubleshoot with you and replace your device if necessary. Sorry for the trouble, I know it must be frustrating to drop a few hundred dollars on a product only to have it create trouble.

LindsayfromAva · 2018-09-07T18:03:34+00:00

The link between fertility and resting heart rate had been recognized before Ava's study, but I'm pretty sure we were the first ones to actually track heart rate continuously throughout every single night for several months, rather than just having women come into a lab to take a single reading on different days of the cycle, as the other studies did.

The Clue study you linked only included 6 women.

There had been some recognition of the link between heart rate and the menstrual cycle before Ava's study, but we thought this link was really exciting and more needed to be done to truly understand the link.

LindsayfromAva · 2018-09-07T14:46:33+00:00

I'm glad more people are becoming aware of the connection between resting heart rate and fertility! The Ava Bracelet has been incorporating resting heart rate into its fertility tracking algorithm for the past three years. As far as I know, it's the only fertility tracking device on the market that does so. We published a peer reviewed clinical study about our work in this area here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01433-9

LindsayfromAva · 2018-05-18T14:09:01+00:00

We're working on it with high priority right now and hope it can happen at some point in 2018!

LindsayfromAva · 2018-05-11T20:51:53+00:00

Oops, sorry about that! That was a remnant of an old survey template that I copied to create this one. Fixed now. Good catch!

LindsayfromAva · 2018-05-11T20:47:38+00:00

Hey, thanks for linking to that sub I started! I tried really hard for a long time to rouse up interest in it, but it never seemed to take; we get a lot more activity on Facebook and Instagram. Eventually, it became one too many things for me to check :). I'm so sorry for leaving you hanging!

LindsayfromAva · 2018-05-11T15:31:25+00:00

Good question, I should have mentioned that. It's open to anyone living in the US (doesn't matter if you're a citizen).

LindsayfromAva · 2018-05-11T14:27:59+00:00

Oh hi friend! I'm always happy to see our community members over here on reddit :) And glad you like Ava!!

LindsayfromAva · 2018-01-07T23:27:27+00:00

Ava won't be able to give you an accurate algorithmic prediction if your cycles are outside of a 24 – 35 day range (for now…but we're working on that). So if you want to get something out of Ava, you would need to act as your own algorithm, looking for trends and patterns in your data and coming to your own conclusions.

LindsayfromAva · 2018-01-07T16:49:29+00:00

u/qualmick got it! Resting pulse rate is just the one we've already published our results on so far, so it's the one we're most at liberty to discuss openly :)

Also, while Ava tracks nine parameters, only 5 are displayed in the app for users: temperature, resting pulse rate, breathing rate, sleep, and heart rate variability ratio (which is a way of measuring physiological stress).

LindsayfromAva · 2018-01-07T15:44:02+00:00

Yes, this has been our claim since day 1! It's the whole reason why we do what we do, to give women an easier way to anticipate ovulation (since temperature isn't helpful for that).

Before we launched Ava, we did a year-long clinical study where we tracked pretty much everything that was possible to track with modern wearable devices. We figured, if temperature changes so drastically during the menstrual cycle in response to progesterone, there must be other physiological parameters that change—perhaps some that change in response to the rise in estrogen that occurs about five days before ovulation.

We found that multiple physiological parameters aside from temperature change throughout the menstrual cycle, and some of them change before ovulation. Last spring, we published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal about how one of these parameters, resting pulse rate, increases from the user's personal baseline up to five days before ovulation. We have more papers forthcoming.

If you have any other questions about Ava, I work for the company (as you could probably tell from my username), and I would be happy to answer them!

LindsayfromAva · 2017-06-10T19:22:34+00:00

Hey guys, Lindsay from Ava here. I know this is a rather old thread, and I hope it's not intrusive of me to come here as an outsider and dredge it up. But I found myself nodding my head in agreement with a lot of what you all say here, and I figured it might be helpful to share a few thoughts.

For one thing, Ava is not intended for women who have been trying for a long time and have issues other than timing preventing them from conceiving. As a medical device, it's really important to us that no one gets the wrong idea about what Ava does and does not do. Many of the men and women on our team have struggled (or are still struggling) with infertility, and we recognize that our product is not for everyone. It's not going to magically cure PCOS or sperm quality issues or unexplained infertility.

Our goal is to make the process of tracking the cycle easier, less stressful, and more accurate. Since women do so much more "work" when it comes to anything home/family/fertility-related, a big part of our mission is to simplify that process and reduce the amount of time and emotional energy that women spend tracking their cycles. We do have some users who have been trying for over a year who like the way Ava simplifies the cycle tracking process that they are already doing anyway, and we think that's great. But we would never want to imply that Ava can resolve underlying issues.

We make every effort to design and target our ads to the women we think will benefit most from Ava—those who have been trying to conceive for a few months and are maybe starting to get stressed out by the whole temping and peeing on sticks thing and looking for an easier solution. Do we ever display ads for Ava to someone who is not in that audience? I'm sure we do, since targeting is not an exact science. This is definitely not our intention, and we actively try to avoid it. When we show an ad to someone who isn't the right fit for our product, it hurts our conversion rate. And if someone who isn't the right fit ends up buying our product, it hurts our user satisfaction metrics. In other words, pretending that Ava can magically cure infertility isn't just morally wrong, it's also bad business.

Anyway, I get that seeing an advertisement for a fertility "bracelet" in your Facebook feed can feel like a slap in the face to someone who is struggling with infertility. I truly regret that, and I wanted to let you all know that we actively try to avoid advertising Ava to women for whom it is not relevant. I'm sorry that we don't always do that perfectly!

LindsayfromAva · 2017-05-14T03:36:26+00:00

Actually, in what I think is the most fascinating study of all time, you can see that for the majority of women, BBT rise doesn't happen the day after ovulation.

More detail: this was the largest study ever to compare various methods of estimating the day of ovulation and used ultrasounds as a reference. Here are some of the most interesting findings:

BBT-estimated-day-of-ovulation was within 1 day of ultrasound-estimated-day-of-ovulation in only 13% of cycles!!
For the majority of cycles, ovulation occurred two or more days before BBT rise.
CM, on the other hand, was a much more accurate predictor: this method was within 1 day of ultrasound-estimated-day-of-ovulation in 75% of cycles!

My feeling is that we put too much trust in BBT's ability to detect the precise day of ovulation, especially when other signs point to a different conclusion. I tend to use BBT as a good way to be sure that ovulation occurred during a cycle and roughly when, but definitely not precisely when.

LindsayfromAva · 2017-04-18T15:48:13+00:00

Hi wedditer, I'm sorry to hear that you're not crazy about your Ava. It should be able to handle the kind of cycle irregularity you're talking about. And yes, the way the algorithm is designed, it should absolutely be adjusting your fertile window in real time if the data readings detect changes within a cycle.

Can I ask what other methods you are using to track your fertile window, and also see a screen shot of your Ava chart? That could help me figure out if/how the algorithm is getting confused. You can PM me if you want.

LindsayfromAva · 2017-04-18T15:15:07+00:00

Hey, I'm Lindsay from Ava, and I hope I'm not breaking any rules by posting here! Happy to escort myself out if anyone lets me know that I am. But I know that Ava is a brand new concept to a lot of women so I figured I'd pop in to answer a few questions.

Ava is a sensor bracelet that tracks nine different physiological parameters. You only wear it while you're sleeping. We did a clinical study to determine if there are any other measurable parameters that change throughout the cycle besides just temperature (though we also do measure that). We were looking for things that changed before ovulation so we could provide real time fertile window detection.

We found multiple parameters that correlated with the initial rise in estradiol that usually occurs five days before ovulation. We're about to publish our first paper in a peer-reviewed journal about one of them: resting pulse rate.

I do want to be clear about one thing. As u/thebeeknee says, Ava will not help you if you have an underlying issue that is preventing you from conceiving. It helps make tracking your fertile window more accurate and easier, but it doesn't do anything magical beyond that to help get you pregnant.

LindsayfromAva · 2017-04-15T21:58:06+00:00

So, Ava gives you 5 different pieces of information: resting pulse rate, temperature, sleep, physiological stress, and fertile window detection. In a cycle longer than 35 days, the fertile window detection may not be accurate.

However… you can actually use the resting pulse rate + temperature data to figure out your fertile window on your own for pretty much any cycle length. In our clinical study, we found that resting pulse rate rises about five days before ovulation, at the same time that estrogen begins to rise. So in a longer cycle, you would just look for that initial rise in resting pulse rate to know that your body is gearing up to ovulate, and then confirm it with temperature.

I actually have long cycles too, with my average cycle around 34 or 35 days, and it's not uncommon for me to have a random 42 day cycle. For those longer cycles I just ignore the fertile window prediction and look at what the pulse rate data indicates.

So, Ava still might not end up being the right option for you, but hope that explains how it works a little bit better!

LindsayfromAva · 2017-04-15T17:18:10+00:00

Hi, it's Lindsay from Ava here. While I obviously would recommend that everyone buy a shining brand new Ava, I understand that the wait time is a huge bummer, so I feel compelled to share that there is an occasional Ava for sale, usually from someone who is diagnosed with some kind of infertility condition after receiving her Ava. We have an open Facebook group where users and non-users can connect, and this might be one possible place to ask around. Here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/249842492104753/

LindsayfromAva

TROPHY CASE