In order to best understand femtech and how it works with fertility awareness, we have to first look at what those are, and then we can dive into the relationship between them.
Femtech is a new term that refers to new tools and technology that are meant to help women monitor their health and their hormones. It's often asked how that fits with fertility awareness, so let's dive in.
Thanks to modern technology, we have many options for femtech in today's world.
Tempdrop, Oura Ring, Inito Monitor, Clearblue Monitor, Mira Monitor, Ava Bracelet, Natural Cycles, Daysy, Kegg The list goes on.
These new innovations can be used to gather detailed health data ranging from hormone tests at home to confirming ovulation with temperature rises. There are a whole host of reasons one might want to use femtech, but the most common one I have seen is that women are planning to use this information to make decisions about their fertility.
Let's talk about what that looks like without femtech first, so that we can better understand what it means when we add those items into it. Fertility Awareness (FAM) is an umbrella term encompassing many methods of fertility tracking. It's an education-based tool in which women learn how to track their biomarkers for the purposes of monitoring their health in real-time. This information can also be used to plan their families for the purposes of achieving or avoiding a pregnancy. Learning how your body works is a fabulous tool and something I think all women should do, regardless if you plan to use the information to plan your family.
So, under the FAM umbrella, there are many methods. These methods each have their own pros and cons, so taking the time to find the one that works for you is super important before deciding on one method. Another important consideration is to think more long-term when determining which method to use- what works for you during regular cycles, may not work when you are in a different season and that's ok. (If you're looking for a method right now, here's a great quiz to help you decide!)
Some of those methods of fertility awareness make use of femtech and some do not. FEMM, the method that I teach and use, tracks two biomarkers and makes use of at-home lh testing to track our cycles. The Marquette Method uses the clearblue monitor. The Creighton Method has no monitor to use at all. The varying methods have their own requirements for using femtech. The biggest differentiating factor between using femtech and using fertility awareness are the protocols. If you are using femtech to learn about your health that is awesome! More power to you! BUT, if you are using femtech to plan your family, it's vital that you have an instructor with an established method to teach you their protocols. Every method of FAM has their own protocols for family planning that differ depending on what season of life you are in, and having an instructor to teach you those things is what will enable you to get as close as possible to perfect use of that method which enables you to plan your family with more accuracy. I'd like to wrap this all up by saying that femtech is wonderful and I love it. It's given us the ability to gather detailed health data in more detail and more accurately than ever before. Femtech and Fertility Awareness were meant to work together! So, if you want to use them, just find an instructor and jump right in!
If you're wanting to learn more and are not sure where to start; let's talk.