Ava monitors nine physiological parameters to track a woman’s menstrual cycle and detect the beginning of a her fertile window
Swiss medical technology company focused on innovations in women’s reproductive health, Ava, has announced the official European launch of its first product, the Ava bracelet, a cycle-tracking wearable that uses new technology to detect a woman’s fertile window.
Launched in the US last summer on iOS and already claiming nearly a dozen confirmed pregnancies among the earliest US users, Ava will now be available for purchase to consumers throughout Europe for the first time this week. As of next week, the device will work on Android as well as iOS.
Ava is the first wearable device designed to track, visualise and understand the menstrual cycle in real time. Whether a woman wants to get pregnant or simply better understand her body, Ava provides a level of insight that has never been available outside of a clinical setting.
Specifically for women trying to conceive, the Ava bracelet sensors collect more than three million data points per night around nine physiological parameters (including pulse rate, breathing rate, sleep quality, heart rate variability and temperature) that correlate with the rise in reproductive hormones estradiol and progesterone. The rise in these hormones is used to detect an average of more than five fertile days per cycle in real time.
As users simply wear the Ava bracelet while sleeping and sync it with the Ava app in the morning, they avoid the hassles, mess and invasiveness of other fertility tracking methods like ovulation strips and BBT thermometers.
Registered as a Class 1 medical device in the US, the Ava bracelet was proven in a clinical study at the University Hospital of Zurich to detect an average of 5.3 fertile days per cycle with 89% accuracy. The year-long study was conducted under the leadership of Professor Brigitte Leeners, a leading expert on the mathematical modelling of menstrual cycles.
A second clinical study, also led by Professor Leeners, is currently underway, with results expected later this year.
“Women spend so much time and emotional energy trying to accurately track their cycles, often using multiple methods in tandem,” explained Leeners. “Specifically timing intercourse around ovulation is critical for conceiving, but the current options for doing so are inadequate. We’re long overdue for a device like Ava that detects the fertile window precisely and easily.”
According to Ava co-founder Lea von Bidder, fertility tracking is just the beginning of exciting possibilities for Ava’s cycle-tracking technology. She points to research the company is planning to further refine its algorithms for use in pregnancy monitoring, and possible use as a non-hormonal contraceptive device.
“Many women don’t realise how central a role the menstrual cycle plays in understanding their overall health,” said von Bidder. “In the past, precise information about the cycle was so difficult to come by that only women who were trying to get pregnant would go through the trouble. With Ava, we’re making it easy for all women to get more information about their cycles than has ever been available, more easily than ever before.”
