Reader Comments

Post a new comment on this article

Ovulation is not accurately detected by basal body temperature methods in Natural Cycles app

Posted by jpriorubc on 10 Mar 2022 at 20:24 GMT

Yours in an important paper in attempting to not only assess changes in menstrual cycles and in the duration of flow but also to assess ovulation. There may be some behind the scenes quantification of ovulation in the Natural Cycles app but the Bull article they reference does not disclose it. Without some quantitative, validated way of assessing the basal temperature record, ovulation cannot be reliably assess and the luteal phase length documented. Hence the decreased percentage of anovulatory cycles during COVID-19.

Competing interests declared: I do not have an economic competing interest.
However, the UBC Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research has developed a Quantitative Basal Temperature(c) method (Prior JC 1990) that we have blindly validated against serial serum LH levels to assess the LH peak, and also related to the 3-fold follicular-luteal phase urinary metabolite of progesterone (PdG). That validated method is freely available: https://www.cemcor.ca/resources/qualitative-basal-temperature-qbt-method-ovulation
-detection. Jerilynn C. Prior jerilynn.prior@ubc.ca
report a concern respond to this posting