Simple Urine Test Gives Accurate Prediction of Ovulation

Women trying to conceive should make use of the urine test over the more commonly used calendar method, said the makers of the test.
"The calendar method is good to help women to start to understand how their cycle works, but if women are really trying to conceive ... it's not really the best method to use," said Jayne Ellis, head of scientific and medical affairs at SPD Swiss Precision Diagnostics, which makes the Clearblue ovulation test.According to a study conducted by the company, the calendar method predicted ovulation correctly in only one in four women, while the test "predicted correctly in 99 percent of women over the same period," the authors of the study said in a statement.
The calendar method, which uses the previous cycle length and subtracts 14 or 15 days to give an estimate of the day of ovulation, is used by about 35 percent of women, the researchers found, pointing out that many websites and mobile phone applications offer calculation assistance.
Ellis and her team had asked a group of 101 women to collect daily urine samples for a total of 895 cycles, and then compared the accuracy with which the calendar method and the Clearblue test predicted peak fertile days.
"We found that the calendar method was inaccurate in preditcing ovulation and therefore the peak fertile days," Ellis said in the statement, adding that "this is because it uses data from previous cycles which are naturally variable in many women."