Smartphone App Touts It Can Calculate Women's Fertility
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- These days, it seems there's an app for everything, and there is a recent technology that is aimed at couples struggling with infertility.
On the website IVFpredict.com, British researchers devised an online calculator that detects your odds of conceiving a baby through in-vitro fertilization, or IVF.
Scientists from the Universities of Glasgow and Bristol analyzed more than 144,000 IVF cycles and came up with nine questions for couples, including a woman's age, IVF history, pregnancy history and years trying to get pregnant. The researchers say your answers predict your IVF success rate, a percentage that can soon be downloaded to your smart phone.
"I have a 14.4 percentage chance of conceiving using IVF at the age of 41," said Kristin Beltaos, a Maple Grove mother of two, who took the online test.
Beltaos and her husband struggled with infertility for years before conceiving two little boys in their late-30s. The journey inspired her to help other couples in the same situation.
"You kind of slump into this place of despair and you isolate yourself from your family and your friends," said Beltaos.
Her life coaching business, A Gift of Miles helps couples weigh big decisions like in-vitro.
"You are making a big emotional, physical decision, that also costs a lot of money," said Beltaos.
Beltaos knows from experience, that focusing on the numbers can lead a couple off-track emotionally. She worries about the app being used as a tool without the care of a fertility doctor.
"I don't think you can summarize your infertility in nine questions," Beltaos said. "I think that every month is a chance, a chance to conceive."
Researchers say the app is coming to iTunes soon and will be available for download on the iPhone and Android.
A spokesperson for a local fertility clinic told us its physicians would agree with Beltaos. He said the app doesn't take into account all the predictors for fertility.
The researchers behind the app, however, say it's nearly 100 percent accurate, because it's based on more than 140,000 IVF cycles.
WCCO-TV's Lindsey Seavert Reports
