Boston-based fertilty tracker company Ovatemp launched its app today. The app is designed to help women conceive naturally, based on a process called Fertility Awareness Method (FAM).
So far Ovatemp has received $700,000 in angel funding.
While Ovatemp said its FAM process is based on traditional Chinese medicine, according to Planned Parenthood there are multiple methods of FAM. All methods track a woman's fertility cycle to identify when a woman is most fertile and least fertile.
“We’ve designed Ovatemp as a smarter mobile fertility service that allows women to track their cycles while offering natural fertility enhancement techniques at the right time of one’s cycle,” Ana Mayer, co-founder and Chief Fertility Officer of Ovatemp said in a statement. “By helping women naturally identify their fertility type through self-monitoring, we’re empowering them to make personalized decisions that can help improve fertile health and time intercourse according to their needs.”
Ovatemp also partnered with Jill Blakeway, a licensed acupuncturist and board-certified herbalist to develop a specific fertility enhancement program for Ovatemp's app that is based on programs developed at Blakeway's acupuncture clinic, the New York City-based YinOva Center. Ovatemp also offers dietary and nutritional supplement recommendations, meditation, and acupressure techniques to enhance fertility.
Using all of these features, Ovatemp aims to provide a woman with a personalized plan that works "for her, and her alone".
Later this year, Ovatemp plans to launch its Bluetooth-connected oral basal thermometer, called Ondo, that connect to the app and offers a more accurate way to track fertility. Ondo is not yet FDA-cleared, but the company expects clearance this year.
An area that Ovatemp hopes to explore next is how to help women who have been through a miscarriage.
Another fertility tracking app, Kindara, is also based on the FAM process. In March, Kindara CEO Will Sacks told MobiHealthNews in an email that while many women use Kindara to get pregnant, 25 percent of Kindara users are using the app to avoid pregnancy. He added that the app provides many resources to make it easier for women to learn how to use fertility tracking as contraception and the method Kindara uses has been proven to be as effective as the pill.