That mobile applications increasingly help us make our lives easier is something that little by little we are getting used to. Within this category of applications, "medical" apps are becoming more and more relevant, and it is common to find on the smartphone of any user apps to help you exercise or take better care of your health.
Natural Cycles emerged a few months ago as a true revolution, becoming the first application to be certified by a state agency as a contraceptive method. Based on natural methods and its own algorithm, the application promised an effectiveness rate similar to other natural methodsBut a recent complaint from a Swedish hospital has placed her at the center of controversy. Is this a really useful app or does it just sell smoke?
Based on a lifelong natural method
Among contraceptive methods we find "natural" methods that put aside barrier devices or medications to use knowledge of a woman's ovulatory cycle to prevent unwanted pregnancies. By controlling data such as basal temperature and the menstrual cycle itself, many women who choose this contraceptive method to avoid pregnancy since they can determine the days of greatest fertility and thus be able to avoid sexual intercourse during that period.
This method is what the application uses to tell you when you can have sex with a low risk of getting pregnant, and when you should avoid them because the risk is higher. Like all contraceptive methods, the effectiveness is not 100%, but studies carried out by the creators of the application say that it is as effective as other methods, even being compared to the contraceptive pill or the condom.
The controversy over unwanted pregnancies
The problem has come when in Sweden, the country where the application was created and in which it obtained the certification by the State Agency for Medical Products, a hospital has detected that a good part of the abortions carried out due to unwanted pregnancies have been in women who used this application as a contraceptive method. This has caused the hospital itself to report the application to the State Agency to review this certification.
The study carried out by the hospital during a period from September 2017 to the end of the year concludes that of the 668 women who had an abortion, 37 had used the app. The answer that the developers, doctors to say the least, have given is that the percentage obtained from this study is 5,5%, figures that are in line with the studies carried out by themselves and published on their website. Obviously this statement makes no sense since the rest of the women did not use the application.
A method not suitable for everyone
Although the studies provided by the creators of the application do not seem sufficient, we will try to admit that the application is effective since it has been certified by a state agency in Sweden, and apparently also in Germany. Other studies in which it is compared with other contraceptive methods are missing, in order to ensure with total rigor that "it is as effective as the contraceptive pill or condom", as they dare to say on their website. But let's admit its effectiveness despite all the doubts that it generates in me personally because, as we say, it is certified by supposedly serious organizations.
And is that the problem he faces Natural cycles is that it gives everyone a contraceptive method that is not suitable for everyone. Natural methods like the one that Natural Cycles is based on require discipline and knowledge of the female body that is not always easy to achieve. Learn about it, know its risks and benefits, even follow expert advice It is usually common for women who opt for these natural methods, something very different from downloading an application on your mobile and thinking that just entering the data is more than enough.
A sample that not all women who use the application are prepared to follow this contraceptive method can be taken from the Natural Cycles study itself, where we can read that «Approximately half of the women who got pregnant using the Natural Cycles app had sex despite the fact that the app itself indicated that they were in a period of maximum risk of pregnancy".