Is the Lady-Comp/Pearly worth it?

Have you ever thought about getting a lady-comp for natural birth control? While it boasts great effectiveness, there are a few downsides.

People ask me all of the time: “Should I splurge on a LadyComp? I see how effective they are and it seems like such an easy natural birth control method!”

While LadyComp is effective based on their studies, there are areas that it falls short, particularly as an alternative to an excellent education in the sympto-thermal method of fertility awareness (STM).

First, what the LadyComp is: The LadyComp is a device that is connected to a thermometer. You take your temperature every morning with the thermometer and it stores in the device. With this info, it compares your cycles to your past cycles as well as the cycles of other women to decide when you are likely fertile.

The problem with the LadyComp is that it is going off of one sign: Your temperature. Your temperature does reliably go up when you ovulate, but there are two issues with the LadyComps use of temperature:

1. Using only temperature only tells you after you ovulate, meaning the device must preidct when your fertile phase will begin based on previous cycles only and not your current cycle.
2. Temperature is less precise than the other sign used in the sympto-thermal method – Cervical fluid. In one study basal body temperature was 11% less accurate at predicting ovulation than cervical fluid.

 

Want a quickie comparison of the LadyComp versus the sympto-thermal method?

 

In fact, the lady comp has been said to have a duration of fertile days about 17 days long with a standard deviation of about 6. That means only 5% of users are having a fertile phase less than 11 days long. For those who use the sympto-thermal method of fertility awareness (in which the fertile phase is calculated based on physiological processes that are necessary for conception), the fertile phase is generally less than 10 days, especially when you have a healthy cycle.

In other words, the reason the LadComp has such a high effectiveness is because you have to abstain or use an alternate method a lot.

In addition, out of only 168 cycles, it was found that in one the device failed completely, in 3 the fertile phase was located at day -4 (with ovulation being day 0, and if there is cervical fluid present, sperm can live for up to five days), in one cycle at day -2, and in one cycle the end of the fertile time was shown at day 0. Ovulation day!

The sympto-thermal method of fertility awareness is based off of what is actually happening in your body in that cycle, so as long as your education is good you will not have a fertile phase mapped out that is too long of too short.

Personally, though I can see how it appeals to many people, I would never trust this device as my only method of birth control. If you want to have to spend more days in “the red zone”, and not have control over, and knowledge about, something as precious as your fertility, go for it! If you do want to “have it all,” sign up for an STM class, it’ll change your life!