Your Uterus: There's An App For That

“It’s possible to replace medication with technology,” says Eva Berglund, creator of the contraceptive app Natural Cycles, which allows women to check their fertility daily by taking their temperature and entering it into the app.

Berglund also happens to be a nuclear physicist — but the app's method of birth control, which checks ovulation by correlating the monthly cycle with basal body temperature, is not rocket science. It’s long been known as a reliable method. The app’s algorithm only makes it easier and more accurate.

The difficult part of the app development process has been getting it approved as a contraceptive. After years of legal conflicts — compounded by headlines attacking its credibility by, ahem, those in the pharmaceutical industry, among others — Natural Cycles has finally been approved as the first app-based contraceptive by German certification organisation Tüv Süd.

Given recent undeniable evidence that hormone-based birth control methods carry long-understudied risks, the importance of non-medical options is becoming increasingly clear. Add to this the fact that across much of the world it’s difficult or expensive for women to access birth control in prescription form, the "app-for-that" mentality may, for once, have yielded a liberating, rather than over-simplified solution.