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Let’s go back to high school for a moment…

If you were going to ask someone else to do your homework for you, or take an important exam for you, you’re going to ask someone smarter than you right?

Someone who could guarantee they would get a better result than you could.

Would you consider asking someone if they weren’t as smart as you, if there was no guarantee?

No, you wouldn’t.

So why are you asking an inanimate object to tell you when you’re fertile?

In this episode, I’m getting controversial and breaking down why home fertility tests and ovulation predictor kits are a waste of your time, energy and money.

I’ll be talking about how these tests actually work and what they’re detecting to predict ovulation, because remember we can’t actually predict ovulation itself. I’ll talk about the different types of tests, what I recommend and what I don’t, and things that can make the tests less reliable for you.

 

Here’s what we cover in this episode:

• Luteinising Hormone and the elusive “LH surge”
• What Can an Ovulation Predictor Kit Tell You? (Turns out not much, actually)
• When testing can be useful, and when it’s a waste of time
• Why you should never bother with a saliva test

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Hello, and welcome to episode 36 of The Mana Women’s Wellness Podcast. I’m your host, Rachel and today I’m getting controversial and breaking down why home fertility tests and ovulation predictor kits are a waste of your time, energy and money.

I’ll be talking about how these tests actually work and what they’re detecting to predict ovulation, because remember we can’t actually predict ovulation itself. I’ll talk about the different types of tests, what I recommend and what I don’t, and things that can make the tests less reliable for you.

Just like my little rant about tracking apps a couple of weeks ago (Episode 32), I want you to stop relying on technology and gadgets and all of these external things to tell you what’s going on inside your own body. Unless it’s a thermometer to tell you your basal body temperature, you do not need a gadget to tell you when you’re fertile. A thermometer just tells you your temperature, it doesn’t tell you if you’re fertile, and if they ever invent a BBT thermometer that tells you when you’re fertile I’d be telling you not to buy it.

If you were going to ask someone else to do your homework for you, or take an important exam for you, you’re going to ask someone smarter than you right? Someone who could guarantee they would get a better result than you could? Would you consider asking someone if they weren’t as smart as you? If there was no guarantee? No, you wouldn’t. So why are you asking an inanimate object to tell you when you’re fertile?

Because you have all the knowledge you need already to confirm ovulation and identify when you’re fertile. And I want you to feel confident in your skills, not dependant on something else to tell you.

Let me tell you why you are smarter than a predictor kit. But first, let’s go back to some menstrual cycle basics.

Luteinising Hormone & The LH Surge

I want to refresh your memory about Luteinising Hormone. Luteinising Hormone is released by the pituitary gland and it causes maturing of the follicle in the ovary, release of the egg (ovulation) and formation of the corpus luteum, which is what remains of the follicle after the egg is released.  Luteinising Hormone levels will gradually increase during the follicular phase before ovulation, and its release from the pituitary gland is triggered when oestrogen levels peak. It’s all a domino effect of one hormone influencing the levels of another.

LH levels will begin to rise about 36 hours before ovulation and are said to reach a peak about 17 hours before the egg is released. So the idea with an ovulation predictor kit is that you have a head’s up about when ovulation is going to occur in the next 36 hours or so, so you know to have sex. However…

… there is high variation in when this LH surge occurs in women. It’s not always 17 hours before ovulation, just like we don’t all ovulate on day 14. Our bodies are a little more sophisticated that this. Plus this LH surge does not always result in ovulation, some women need to attempt ovulation several times in a cycle before they’re successful, and to make things more confusing, ovulation can actually occur without a surge in LH at all. Some women might also experience a surge without an egg actually being released from the ovary, called luteinised unruptured follicle syndrome.

What Can an Ovulation Predictor Kit Tell You? (Turns out not much, actually)

What this all means that the LH surge occurs at different times around ovulation, and sometimes not at all, so your ovulation predictor kit is basically telling you that you are somewhere around ovulation maybe, it might have already happened, or it might be happening soon, but beyond that it can’t really provide a reliable indicator of the fertile window and ovulation. So why would we bother wasting our money month after month for something to tell us that maybe we’re somewhere in our fertile window. Don’t we have our cervical mucus for that? Doesn’t our mucus change throughout our fertile window so we can see when ovulation is approaching, when we’re at our peak day, and then it changes suddenly again so we know that ovulation has definitely happened. Doesn’t our BBT help us to confirm when ovulation has happened?

Unless you’re beyond addicted to them, ovulation predictors are used once a day, so if your LH surge lasts less than 24 hours, and this LH surge occurs at a time of day outside of when the test is used, you might not detect the surge at all. Or maybe your LH levels don’t actually rise enough to be detected by the kit. In the same way that our pregnancy hormones need to be at a certain level before a pregnancy test gives us a positive result.

Variable LH Surges

You might also experience mini-surges of LH before the actual rise in LH levels and ovulation. This is particularly common for women with PCOS, where their body attempts to ovulate more than once before it is actually successful. If you detect a surge in LH, you’re going to have sex soon after, but if ovulation hasn’t actually happened, then you’ve likely timed sex too early and sperm may not live for long enough to still be around when the egg is released. If you only test in that window of time during your cycle and then stop, (because why would you keep testing if you believe you’ve already ovulated?) then you may actually miss another LH surge and miss when ovulation has actually happened. Meaning you don’t have sex again in the cycle and you miss the fertile window for that cycle when pregnancy was actually possible.

Your observation of your cervical mucus will always be more reliable than these tests. These tests give no indication about the quality of your mucus and whether or not there is actually enough there at the time of the LH surge to facilitate a pregnancy. Often by the time a kit shows a surge, your cervical mucus has begun to dry up, meaning it is not fertile-quality.

When Testing is Useful

Ultimately, fertility testing kits are only accurate when they test your fertility around ovulation. An average kit will have around 5-9 day’s worth of tests. If you have a longer cycle, a longer follicular phase, multiple attempts at ovulation, you will likely not have enough days of testing to get you through your potentially fertile phase, which can get very frustrating and very expensive.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, if your cycles are shorter than average, the kit will be instructing you to test your fertility based on that average length cycle – 28 days of course – so they might be telling you to test earlier or later than your actual fertile window. So the test might indicate that you haven’t ovulated, when in fact you just haven’t ovulated yet.

Of course, this accuracy of tests can be improved when you know your body’s natural fertile signs, so you can at least test with more accuracy because you have a better understanding of where you are in your cycle and you know when to test. But if you already have this knowledge, and you already know that you’re in your fertile window. Stop testing and start trying.

When Testing is Not Useful

Other things you’ll need to consider, and when testing will not give you helpful results is

• If you are already pregnant, because the test won’t tell you so, it would simply tell you that you aren’t ovulating. The same applies if you’re breastfeeding or have recently had a baby.
• Some drugs can affect the test results too, including most fertility drugs, especially those than contain FSH, LH or HCG, as well as certain antibiotics and hormone therapy.
• Women over 40 and those approaching menopause can have elevated levels of LH that have nothing to do with ovulation. A kit might show a surge for these women over multiple days, which just isn’t accurate.

Saliva Tests

So now I want to touch on saliva tests, which I do not recommend!

As oestrogen levels rise during the follicular phase as ovulation approaches, there is an increase in the amount of sodium chloride, or salt, in our mucus secretions. So this applies to our cervical mucus as well as our saliva. This salt causes crystallisation of our saliva when it dries, and is thought to show a characteristic ferning pattern. Saliva based fertility tests involve testing your saliva every day of your menstrual cycle and when the patterns of your saliva on the glass slide show this ferning pattern, you are said to be in your fertile window.

These results, however, are not reliable. They are hard to read and interpret and it’s very hard to accurately identify the beginning and the end of the fertile window. As I said, I do not recommend these saliva tests but just wanted to provide some brief information about them if you have heard of them or considered using them. Instead of smearing saliva on a glass slide every morning, just observe your cervical mucus throughout the day.

My Thoughts

I don’t really believe that ovulation predictor kits are necessary when you understand your menstrual cycle and your body’s fertile signs. In you’re confident in your observations, you don’t need them! Even if your cycles are irregular – especially if they’re irregular – looking at your fertile signs every day will give you more information. If you feel that tracking mucus on its own isn’t enough to tell you what you need to know, track your BBT too. If you’re still not sure, consider tracking your cervical position everyday. This will be so much more valuable than an ovulation predictor kit – which despite its name, cannot predict ovulation.

If you use them and you want to continue to use them, that’s ok but please remember that you have all the knowledge and tools you need to accurately identify when you are fertile and to confirm ovulation. If you have a pretty regular, average length menstrual cycle, they will likely work for you and accurately confirm when you are ovulating, but more often than not it’s women with irregular, unpredictable, long or short cycles who want to use these tests to give them more clarity, and it’s for these women that they are not always reliable.

If you’re addicted to fertility testing, ask yourself if you have the skills and knowledge to figure out your fertile window without predictor kits, especially if you’re in the group of women when tests may not be accurate.

If you don’t feel confident tracking your fertile signs, let’s change that! Start by jumping on over to today’s shownotes at manawomenswelllness.com/36 to grab your Free Fertility Roadmap which guides you through how to get started charting your cycle and tracking your fertile signs so that you can build up your confidence in identifying your fertile signs and confirming ovulation. If you still want some extra support beyond the Roadmap, if you have any questions, or if you want to tell me that I’m completely 100% wrong about ovulation predictor kits and that they’re the greatest invention of all time, DM me and let’s chat!

I will see you in next week’s episode, where I’ll be joined by a special guest to talk about a whole other area of women’s health and fertility that I’m discovering for myself and becoming obsessed with.

 

Ok, bye for now and don’t forget that knowledge is power!

When you truly understand your body,  you are empowered to make informed decisions and take control of your health!

Until next time.

LINKS & RESOURCES

Want to say goodbye to hormonal contraceptives and their weird and unpleasant side effects?

Want to improve your chances of conceiving quickly and naturally?

You need my Fertility Roadmap – My simple 3-step system to understanding your body’s natural fertile signs and pinpointing ovulation day so that you can use this knowledge to achieve (or avoid) pregnancy.

Related Episodes:

Episode 1 – Menstrual Cycle 101

Episode 2 – Am I Ovulating? The One Check You Can Do Every Day to Know For Sure When You’re Fertile

Episode 12 – The Menstrual Phase – Menstrual Cycle Masterclass Part 1

Episode 13 – The Follicular Phase – Menstrual Cycle Masterclass Part 2

Episode 14 – The Ovulatory Phase – Menstrual Cycle Masterclass Part 3

Episode 15 – The Luteal Phase – Menstrual Cycle Masterclass Part 4

Episode 27 – When Should I Take a Pregnancy Test?

Episode 32 – Delete Your Period Tracking App. Do This Instead.

OTHER FREE RESOURCES

Does your pelvic floor need a little extra TLC? Take the Pelvic Floor Quiz and find out how to start strengthening your pelvic floor today!

Want to make sure you’re exercising safely during your pregnancy? Get your Free Guide: 10 Exercises to Avoid During Pregnancy.

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If you enjoyed this episode and the Fertility Co. Podcast generally, I have a favour. Please take two minutes to subscribe, and to write a rating and a review. You can do that on Apple Podcasts right now by clicking here. If you are an Android user, you can follow the podcast on Spotify here. Those actions will help the podcast reach more people, and I would be truly grateful. Thank you so much.

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