Meet Daysy, My Favorite Choice in Natural Family Planning & Preventing.
A couple of years ago, I had a patient come into my Chiropractic practice who told me about this odd but amazing device she uses for birth control. Device? Not a hormone or surgical intervention? I was intrigued. She said her friend in Germany has this device called LadyComp® to take her oral temperature every day when she woke up, and she has been able to plan and prevent pregnancy for the last two years. So my patient started using it too and said it is amazing, I was intrigued. I then spent the next year researching these devices. It turns out there are a few devices from LadyComp's company that use this specific algorithm to compare your data to millions of data collected over the past 28 years, and also learns your specific cycle. However, in the last couple of years, they came out with a new smaller device, and her name is Daysy®. She can connect to your smart phone to sync with her companion app DaysyView®, but still works as a stand alone with fertility light indicators.
You may be saying, well that sounds great, but how accurate can that really be? Daysy is designed and certified as a medical device with registration in Europe (CE Marking). This is a claim that not every other fertility monitoring technology on the market can make. And the effectiveness of Daysy® has a clinically proven Pearl Index of 0.7, meaning it is 99.3% accurate. The pill, on the other hand, has a Pearl-Index ranging from 0.1 to 0.9, and the IUD coil has a far lower reliability score of between 1 and 3. With Daysy®, you can have the same security as many hormonal methods, but you do not have to suffer from the side effects, and there is no influence on your cycle in any way.
All you have to do is take your oral temperature as soon as you wake up in the morning (after at least 3 hours of consecutive sleep), before your feet have touched the ground, and after 30 seconds she will give you one of three light indications for the day: green= infertile, red= fertile, yellow= unsure, treat like a red day.
So lets dive a little deeper into the menstrual cycle to understand this fertile window. Most women are only fertile 6 days per cycle, 5 days before ovulation and the day of ovulation. The average cycle is 28 days, however that is not the normal. A lot of women range from 26-34 days. Based on the 28 day cycle, the ovaries release an egg each month during ovulation around day 14, which causes a slight but noticeable basal temperature increase, and if that egg is not fertilized then 14 days later the uterine lining sheds and we have our menses.
As a summary, every woman is different, but there are some very basic biological facts that all cycles have in common:
Every woman ovulates only once in each cycle.
If on the rare occasion two or more ovulations occur, they will occur within 24 hours.
After ovulation, the egg can be fertilized for a maximum of 18 hours.
Sperm can remain active and fertile in a woman’s body for a maximum of 5 days
When you measure your temperature with the sensor every morning before you get up, the fertility computer evaluates the data and quickly recognizes your individual fertility pattern.
Now you may be wondering, how is this different than Natural Family Planning or the Fertility Awareness Method, they use a basal thermometer right? Well, yes, and no. For starters the effectiveness rate is much higher with Daysy® than FAM, and its due to the amazing super computer Basal Thermometer, and all you have to do with her is take your temperature. With FAM, you have to wake at the same time each day, take your temp, plot it on a chart or app, then interpret the temperature with other signs and symptoms of fertility including cervical height and fluid/discharge changes throughout the cycle to determine fertility.
With Daysy® you only need 3 consecutive hours of sleep to ensure your body has reached its "basal temperature" and thats it. No interpreting your chart, no checking yourself for fertility signs, no hormonal intervention with bothersome and risky side effects. She can be used as soon as 6 weeks postpartum, as long as you can get a 3 hours stretch of sleep. The data collected and stored on Daysy® can be used to monitor more than just your fertility and is a valuable tool for understanding your body.
I have been using her for over two years and would recommend every woman learn about her to see if it would be a good fit. We all need to know that there are other effective and safe options for birth control and family planning.
I also carry them in my office Rēbalance, a Naturopathic Clinic in San Diego. Contact me to purchase yours today! DrJessnddc@gmail.com