Cycle Monitors and Devices in Natural Family Planning

For fertility awareness based methods (FAB)-users charting and checking of menstrual cycle symptoms may be supported by different instruments anddevices. These cycle monitors promise to detect the fertile and infertile days by using direct and indirect markers of fertilit y in a woman´s menstrual cycle.In this article we use data of our own studies, data out of the literature research in Medline and PubMed and from our own German NFP (natural familyplanning)-database. We tried to rate the efficacy of the tested monitors. We figured out that only for one hormone- and for one temperature-computerreasonable prospective studies exist. To get more comparable results we have performed in 2000 a small pilot study on 6 devices and the symptothermalmethod of NFP (NFP-DAG) together with “Stiftung Warentest”. The efficacy of the various devices differed significantly. We ther efore urgently need moreclinical studies on menstrual cycle monitors for reliable information of the users.