Why you should track ovulation with a test

Tracking ovulation is a helpful tool, whether you want to get pregnant, you want to avoid it, or you want to be in tune with your body. Ovulation—when your ovaries release one or more eggs between periods—can determine when you get your period and when you’re most fertile. 

There are different ways to keep tabs on your cycle, including basal temperature monitoring or and using an app. Even if you really trust those methods, the most accurate way to track ovulation specifically, is to take a test (or even better, combine testing with your other tracking methods).

A study published in the Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics Canada reviewed 140 apps from the Apple Store that had to do with menstrual cycle tracking and ovulation prediction. More than 22% or 31 apps—free and paid—had “serious inaccuracies in content, tools, or both.”

This doesn’t mean that all tracking apps are bad. The study did say that there were some that were high quality, but overall there were major problems. They said users should be “wary” of low quality apps because they don’t target the specific needs of the user and spread misinformation. 

“If the apps are telling you the wrong time to try, you could actually be harming your chances of getting pregnant,” said the study’s lead author and physician at Mount Sinai Fertility Dr. Rhonda Zwingerman. “The flip side of that is for people who are relying on this even in part for contraception, they could risk an unintended pregnancy.”

A similar study from 2018 that tested apps found the “accuracy of ovulation prediction was no better than 21%.” A total of 949 volunteers used urine samples to find out when they were ovulating and compared them to the app predictions.

“Ovulation day varies considerably for any given menstrual cycle length, thus it is not possible for calendar/app methods that use cycle-length information alone to accurately predict the day of ovulation,” the study concludes.