Fertility apps may lack quality standards and not be accurate

Smartphone applications that track a woman’s reproductive health are proliferating, but some provide inaccurate or misleading information, according to a recent survey reported on medscape.com.

“I was surprised by the lack of quality,” said Michelle Moglia, MS, from Planned Parenthood in Easton, Pennsylvania.

She and her colleague conducted a survey of such apps, and found that only 12% were developed with the involvement of healthcare providers. And a literature search turned up only one journal article providing a qualitative analysis of select menstrual cycle and fertility apps.

However, more and more women are using these apps to determine when they are most fertile or to predict their menstrual period, she told Medscape Medical News. As a result, women are showing up at clinics with questions and, sometimes, false information.

Moglia presented results from the survey here at the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Annual Clinical Meeting 2015.

She and her colleague searched the iTunes store for English-language menstrual cycle and fertility tracking apps using the search terms “menstrual cycle,” “period,” “fertility,” and “menstrual calendar.”

It’s hard for consumers to find good-quality apps. I’m not sure how people are picking the ones they use.

They found 262 unique apps for menstrual cycle or fertility tracking, 238 of which were categorized as health and fitness or medical.

The features and functions of the apps varied widely, from creating alerts to averaging cycles, operating in pregnancy mode, and allowing for irregular cycles.

“There is a lot of weird stuff,” Moglia reported. One app promises to help the user determine the days on which she is most likely to conceive a boy or a girl, she reported.