‘Catching Ovulation’: Exploring Women’s Use of Fertility Tracking Apps as a Reproductive Technology

Abstract

Smartphones are increasingly entangled with the most intimate areas of everyday life, providing possibilities for the continued expansion of digital self-tracking technologies. Within this context, the development of smartphone applications targeted at female reproductive health are offering novel forms and practices of knowledge production about reproductive bodies and processes. This article presents empirical research from the United Kingdom on women’s use of fertility tracking applications, known more generally as fertility apps, while trying to conceive. Drawing on material from interviews with women who had experience of using fertility apps, I demonstrate the significance of this particular form of fertility tracking for the embodied shift from pregnancy prevention to actively facilitating pregnancy, participants’ sense of self and identity and how they perceived the reproductive potentiality of their bodies. I argue that fertility apps are significantly involved in making fertility cycles known and thus configuring the pre-pregnant reproductive body.

A scoping review of the information provided by fertility smartphone applications

“…Indeed, the effectiveness and value of fertility apps may be determined indirectly through the qualitative analysis of app users as identified in this review. Women consistently report the value of learning about their bodies, often without any prior desire to seek care or education (Hamper, 2020;Lee & Kim, 2019;Levy & Romo-Aviles, 2019). This reiterates the importance of integrating validated women's reproductive health content in topics within apps, as it enables the opportunity for exposure to pertinent topics of reproductive health and wellbeing that the user may deem as irrelevant, or have overlooked altogether.…”

“…Other types of fertility information identified by this scoping review relate to contraceptive advice (Mangone et al, 2016;Mesheriakova & Tebb, 2017;Sridhar et al, 2015), quantifying the quality of fertility information in apps (Johnson et al, 2018;Kalke et al, 2018;Mangone et al, 2016;Moglia et al, 2016), and descriptions of the types of content without depth of examination or reporting (Haile et al, 2018;Hamper, 2020;Lee & Kim, 2019;Shopov et al, 2019;Staric et al, 2019;Vanya et al, 2017). Fertility information for contraceptive advice apps, while limited in scope to the short-term consequences of long acting, reversible contraceptives (LARCs) on fertility (Mesheriakova & Tebb, 2017;Sridhar et al, 2015), was accurate and instructive.…”

“…Finally, the accuracy of apps' fertility information in a number of records was difficult to ascertain due to the limited descriptions: mainly centred around qualitative statements unable to be verified, such as 'excellent in providing awareness of the menstrual cycle', 'receive useful advice concerning their health' (Staric et al, 2019;Vanya et al, 2017) or via accounts of app content by participants (Hamper, 2020;Levy & Romo-Aviles, 2019). Simplified descriptions were also present in records where the focus of the study was to evaluate the functions of apps rather than to evaluate information, as in Lee and Kim (2019) which provided a report of capabilities of two apps in reference to people with premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and/or dysmenorrhoea, or the market-testing of the uptake of a family planning app (Haile et al, 2018).…”

Bonding work: Spacing relations through pregnancy apps

“…They were all in heterosexual relationships and aged between 23 and 44. As detailed elsewhere (Hamper, 2020), the privileged socio-economic positioning of participants shaped their strong sense of individual agency in navigating apps and associated health advice. The modes of selfregulation and reproductive responsibility that are advocated through pregnancy apps are underpinned by normative ideals of health, coupledom, femininity, and good mothering (Doshi, 2018;Johnson, 2014;Thomas & Lupton, 2016) that have the potential to reproduce inequalities along identity markers such as class, race, age, body size, and sexuality (McRobbie, 2015).…”

Technologies of time: women’s practices of trying to conceive with ovulation biosensing

“…There is to date a small but growing body of research on the topic of self‐tracking (Lupton, 2013a, Lynch and Farrington 2018, Mol, 2000, Nafus, 2016, Roberts et al ., 2019) and the design of wearable sensors (Viseu and Suchman 2010). A small number of studies have examined reproductive apps that involve the user inputting data about the menstrual cycle into a mobile device (see Gambier‐Ross et al ., 2018, Hamper, 2020, Lupton, 2014b). However, there are few studies on women’s practices of ovulation biosensing which, in contrast to apps, involve the measuring or detecting of fluids or temperatures and is often practised by women alone at home using special equipment.…”