“It’s convenient to have these types of apps. But I just want everyone who is using it to know the potential drawbacks of using natural family planning, and also that there is national concern for people’s privacy.”
, it came with an intriguing feature: the ability to estimate whether someone had ovulated by measuring their temperature from their wrist. Apple said that the feature could help people understand their bodies, or help people know the optimal time to try to get pregnant. It also warned that this information shouldThe, which is available on the Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra, comes at a time when similar tech has emerged as a replacement for birth control.
“Having more information about your body and what it’s doing can be a very good thing,” says Kate White, a practicing gynecologist and family planning researcher at the Boston University School of Medicine. “Information without context is dangerous. And I worry that, because the company doesn’t want people to use this actively for fertility, they’re not going to provide information on how to use it for that.
Fertility tracking is a birth control method long used by those practicing religions that ban hormonal birth control, and it's even promoted by the Catholic church. But more people are exploring fertility-awareness methods as they push back against the pill as the default method of birth control. Hormonal birth control can come with significant side effects and, on rare occasions, can cause deadly blood clots.
That skepticism, and an overall lagging investment in women’s health care, has fueled a boom in femtech. But the mobile apps that lead this market, such as Natural Cycles and Daysy, serve a niche customer base and have their own costs. The Daysy is a $320 thermometer that takes basal body temperature data and analyzes it to predict ovulation. Natural Cycles is an app that calculates likely fertility based on temperature inputs and has an annual subscription fee of $99.
Apple says on its website that “cycle tracking should not be used as a form of birth control” and that ovulation estimates are only that: estimates. It provides no guarantee that the tech can say with certainty whether ovulation has occurred, and says it should not be used to diagnose medical conditions that affect ovulation, like polycystic ovary syndrome. When asked for comment, Apple deferred to publicly available videos and web pages about the tech.
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