Pregnancy happens when an egg is fertilized by a sperm.   

It sounds simple, but when your doctor has talked with you about in vitro fertilization (IVF) or intrauterine insemination (IUI). it is no longer so simple. 

Both IVF and IUI require taking medication to stimulate ovulation on a designed schedule. Perhaps you can’t -- or won't -- take medications. Is there anything else you can do?

Before today, the answer was mostly "no". But now, we can tell you "yes"!  You have options.

First, let's review how IVF and IUI work, so you understand the different options.

How does IVF work?

Pregnancy happens when an egg is fertilized by a sperm. And a healthy baby is born if a good egg is fertilized into a healthy embryo.

It sounds simple, but when a woman starts to approach IVF (in vitro fertilization) clinics, she probably has already suffered a lot of struggle.  According to statics, 1 in 7 families have difficulties in conceiving their babies. IVF often acts as the last savior.

However, the publicly known low success rate, side effects from medication, overstimulation, the high cost and number of cycle failure have all scared women away from IVF.    

Is there any solution to have a healthy baby through IVF without suffering so much? 

Yes! Finally, a new technology is here to solve the problem.

The theory is simple, it only takes one good egg for a healthy baby! The mission of the new technology is to just catch that good egg in the most efficient way.    

First, let's see how conventional IVF works and how the new technology can catch that natural and good egg to make natural IVF easy and efficient.  

How Does Conventional IVF Work?

First, a patient takes medication that makes several of her eggs mature and ready for fertilization. Then, the doctor takes the eggs out of her body and mixes them with sperm in a lab to help the sperm fertilize the eggs. Then, they put 1 or more fertilized eggs (embryos) directly into her uterus. Pregnancy happens if any of the embryos implant in the lining of her uterus.

A typical IVF journey is like this: on day two or three of the beginning of the procedure, the patient schedules a visit to the clinic for blood work and an ultrasound. At that appointment she will be given a prescription for birth control, which is usually taken for about two weeks.

Then come the shots. Typically a woman will give herself a shot every day for 10 to 12 days.

Those shots are a hormonal stimulant designed to help her body produce more mature eggs.

The eggs are then retrieved and fertilized. 

The reason conventional IVF requires medication to stimulate ovulation is the egg mostly has to be retrieved at a scheduled and designed time. What if the woman has a good egg? Can her good egg be retrieved for IVF?  Most IVF will not take this approach. The common reason is it is hard to know when to retrieve the egg. Too many ultrasound checks will also discourage the patients from doing IVF.

How New Technology Helps Natural IVF without Medication

Like the ultrasound measures the follicle size to predict the egg’s maturity, a home tracking technology can help both doctors and patients know when the egg is mature enough to be retrieved or when follicle rupture is going to happen.

According to Dr. Moruzzi, MD from Olympia Women's Health at Washington, the Premom Ovulation Tracker currently can predict the follicle rupture or egg retrieval time 2~23 hours in advance.  There is relevancy between a woman’s LH Level and her follicle size. The LH Level can be detected by the Premom Ovulation Tracker app together with Premom Quantitative Ovulation tests.

With a few ultrasound measurements, Premom can calculate the relevancy of the follicle size and LH Level and predict the follicle rupture. 

Currently doctors work with their patients to have the Premom Ovulation Tracker track the LH Level,  and on their own end they track the ultrasound results to figure out the relevancy.

Premom plans to have the users upload their ultrasound results and also show them in the same chart as the LH Levels so users can visually see the relevancy. But to make it even smarter and convenient, Premom is planning to have an IVF portal to do the follicle rupture prediction, which can be verified by the ultrasound measurement.

Below is a real patient’s LH Level and her ultrasound measurement. You can see that  5:34 PM on April 21, 2019 is the patient’s LH Level peak time. One-and-half hours later, i.e. at 5:15 PM, she took her ultrasound test, and her follicle reached its maximize size. That’s also the best time to process the egg retrieval.  

Ideally, before IVF, TTC women (trying to conceive) just need to visit their doctors once a month in 2-3 cycles to verify her follicle size prediction. Then, on her IVF cycle, when Premom predicts her LH Level reaches peak or follicle rupture, she may visit her doctor one day in advance to verify the follicle size and schedule the egg retrieval. 

When Premom AI learns better about each women’s LH Level and her follicle size, Premom will work with the same accuracy as an ultrasound measurement.

Simply put, if the woman actually has a good egg for a healthy baby, the Premom Ovulation tracker is that good egg catcher.

Premom not only can help TTC women find their good and natural egg, but also can help those women who are willing to be an egg donor, instead of scaring away a lot of potential donors who may not want to take ovulation stimulation medication and do 2 weeks of consecutive doctor visit after taking medication.

The Premom ovulation tracker will help a lot of families’ baby dream come true!