Science and innovation are empowering women to step away from the laboratory and trust in their own bodies.
Most women know someone who has struggled to conceive. It’s heartbreaking watching a woman wonder why her body can’t undertake what should be such a natural yet etherial process – the creation of human life. As much as I have a deep respect for medical advancements such as IVF and hormone treatment, I’m even more excited about advancements which provide women with the tools to understand their own reproductive processes, and empower them to achieve the results they seek naturally.
This is where the AVA fertility tracker comes in. It takes for form of a wrist watch which is to be worn throughout the night. It collects physiological data such as resting pulse rate, temperature of the skin, breathing rate, blood flow, light sleep and deep REM sleep. These symptoms fluctuate throughout the ovulation cycle, and this has been well documented through countless peer reviewed lab studies. The application (which you download onto your smart phone and is synced to the wrist watch) uses an algorithm to calculate fertile days with an 89% accuracy rate.
The AVA bracelet has helped thousands of woman to conceive naturally. This is a great step forward for the health of future generations, and I’m very excited to see which direction fertility innovation goes next. We know that babies conceived through IVF are six times more likely to suffer from high blood pressure, putting them at greater risk of heart attacks and strokes. There is growing evidence that assisted reproduction alters the blood vessels in children. According to a Belgium research report, men who are conceived through fertility treatment could have weakened sperm. There are also tentative links between assisted conception methods and autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit disorder.
We also know that in natural conception it is often the strongest and fittest sperm which reaches the egg first, thus creating a kind of eugenic, survival of the fittest effect. In IVF, the male sperm are injected into the the egg in a laboratory setting. Any competition between sperm is neutralised, and therefore offspring are less likely to have the highest DNA integrity. I understand that this can sound harsh, especially for people who were born through IVF. But we can’t deny the fact that nature has a way, which she has developed for millions of years, of ensuring that only the strongest genes propagate. IFV and other artificial contraception methods hamper with natures plan and, because this is a relatively new process, the long-term effects are not well documented. Just like with all animals, modern homo sapiens are not exempt from genetic-based evolution. The interplay of science and culture have a big role to play in this evolution.
This is why I’m so excited about innovation such as the AVA fertility tracker as a tool for couples to conceive naturally and safely. I’m curious to see where this technology goes. I would personally love to see a similar technology which could be used to aid in contraception.
Subscribe to the blog for the latest on health, longevity and fertility.
Resources:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5384197/
La Neige 