Put away the pee sticks, ladies. Scientists are working on a bracelet that will bleep when you’re having a baby!
Women can already track steps, count calories and monitor sleep cycles all from the convenience of a bracelet. And soon, we’ll be able to tell if we’re pregnant, thanks to a clever little blue bracelet called Ava.
The Ava Bracelet is already paving the way as a fashion accessory that lets women track when they’re most fertile. But researchers are currently working on a next generation Ava Bracelet, one that can tell if you have successfully conceived.
This could (finally) be the end of the urine-based tests that we’ve been relying on for over 40 years (since 1969 to be exact).
Beep if you’re pregnant!
Researchers at the University Hospital in Zurich have been working with new technology to develop an Ava bracelet that can do more than just monitor your cycle. This new Ava will be able to assess physiological changes known to occur in early pregnancy.
Like the most sensitive urine-based tests, the new Ava will predict early pregnancy around a week after conception. However, instead of monitoring the levels of human Chorionic Gonadotropin in urine, it monitors minor changes in your heart rate, pulse rate and temperature.
When these things change in a woman, Ava will let out a beep, alerting the wearer that, hooray, sperm successfully made it to egg!
This next-gen of Ava Bracelet isn’t ready for the public just yet. The first trial tested over 100 monthly cycles and predicted 21 pregnancies. The next trial will include 1000 monthly cycles with 100 pregnancies. Once they have refined the algorithm, the fit-bit style bracelet will make its grand debut!
If testing proves successful and the new Ava bracelet goes ahead, it will take a lot of stress out of early pregnancy testing. No need to start your day by weeing on a stick (and probably your hands a little bit too). And no more anxious minutes spent waiting for the test to show two lines.
“Rather than waking up every morning and trying to pee on a stick to detect the rise in hCG you would simply have the bracelet worn both night and day,” says Mohaned Shilaih, senior researcher at University Hospital Zurich.
He presented the research at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine annual congress in Texas this week.
Hopefully the researchers get the go-ahead and this little device makes its way to the Australian market soon! Because, let’s face it, no one likes peeing on a stick! And this DIY toothpaste pregnancy tester isn’t much better!
