Dec 10 2009
A recent British study revealed that over a third of the female test subjects could not recognize their own signs of fertility. Accurately identifying the signs of ovulation and how they relate to a woman's fertile phase is the key to successful family planning. However, just like anything else, it takes time to learn.
OvumOptics, Inc., the makers of Ovu-Trac® Ovulation Predictor Kit, saw a need for a product that simplifies, identifies and explains the fertility process. The kit helps women increase their chances of conception, naturally, without medical intervention. For years, Colleen Biggs, President of Ovum Optics, Inc., struggled with infertility. She realized she had to become more educated about her body and research her questions about fertility. After years of compiling reliable resources and information, she developed Ovu-Trac® in 1996. Her goal was to give women a valuable tool for predicting ovulation, along with providing educational information to help them understand their bodies.
Saliva ovulation and fertility testing was discovered in 1969 by Spanish gynecologist Biel Cassals. Cassals correlated changes in hormone levels during a woman's menstrual cycle with the amount of crystallization that was evident in her saliva. The process was highly accurate in identifying when ovulation was imminent.
The Ovu-Trac® kit uses saliva sampling to identify fertility. Saliva is fast becoming a more accurate diagnostic data collector than blood or urine in a variety of medical testing procedures. Most ovulation prediction kits on the market work by measuring the luteinizing hormone (LH) in a woman's urine. However, even with diligent daily testing, a woman can miss the surge of LH in roughly 20 percent of her cycles. And if a day of testing is missed, so can the surge. A woman may also miss recording a surge if she has an irregular menstrual cycle.
Irregular cycles are overlooked in most ovulation test kits. These urine-based kits assume that ovulation occurs on day 14 of a woman's menstrual cycle. But this is not true for all women, since many do not have a perfect 28-day cycle. By focusing on only day 14, most couples could end up missing the fertile phase completely because of this mistaken belief.
Ovu-Trac® provides women with an accurate and personalized ovulation chart that can be used to record important physical changes throughout her fertility cycles. This educational approach to fertility monitoring allows a woman to correlate the changes in saliva to physical changes that are occurring at specific times in a cycle.
The ovulation chart can help couples appropriately plan intercourse. However, it can also detect potential problems with a woman's cycle such as a short luteal phase or anovulation. This charted information can help her health care practitioner provide a proper diagnosis and/or treatment.
All of this may sound highly scientific and difficult to grasp. In reality, the signs of fertility are easy to identify once they are properly understood. The Ovu-Trac® kit makes this science accessible and understandable to women for successful family planning.