Virtual fertility clinic Apricity has launched an online fertility predictor tool. The interactive tool is designed to predict a woman’s chances of conceiving naturally based on information input about her lifestyle choices, cross-analysed with her age.
The tool’s key findings include:
- Getting your weight to a healthy BMI (between 18.5-25) can increase your chance of pregnancy by more than half (58%)
- Reducing your alcohol intake to less than four drinks per week can increase your chance of pregnancy by almost one fifth (19%)
- Quitting smoking can increase your chance of pregnancy by almost half (49%).
Apricity’s algorithm has found that being even moderately over or underweight has a much bigger impact on fertility than doctors have traditionally communicated to patients. For example, a 33-year-old woman (who neither smokes nor drinks), with a BMI of 27.7, has a 57% chance of getting pregnant. If she were to lose seven kilograms, her chance of getting pregnant increases by 58%.
The tool combines a woman’s age with questions about her lifestyle choices (weekly alcohol intake, smoking habits, body mass index) – via a short quiz – in order to predict her chances of conceiving naturally, with the result displayed as a percentage. Users can then see how that percentage would change on the back of lifestyle changes.
After receiving the results, users are directed to a ‘fertility treatment’ tool, an accompanying tool Apricity has designed, which provides recommendations on how users can optimise their chances of natural conception and/or estimates their chances of success through different types of fertility treatment (based on official UK HFEA data of 500,000 fertility cycles from 2010 to 2016).
Apricity has plans to build out the tool’s sophistication in the coming months, by adding other qualifying factors like stress, sleep and nutrition into the tool. Consistent studies on the impact of these factors are still in development.
Dr Mara Kotrotsou, Apricity’s chief medical officer, said: “Doctors often struggle to have frank discussions with patients about the impact of weight on the chances of pregnancy. In reality, being outside of a healthy BMI can cause hormonal imbalances that interfere with female cycles, normal development of eggs and implantation of embryos. Our fertility predictor has found that losing just six or seven kilos to reach a BMI that’s in the healthy range can increase the chance of pregnancy by more than half, which is very significant. We want hopeful couples to use the tool as motivation that some small lifestyle changes can dramatically increase their chances of conceiving.”
