Digital Health Is Revolutionizing Fertility Treatment

Fertility rates have declined globally over the past decade.

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This month alone, two large innovation giants have launched massive new initiatives in the pregnancy and fertility spaces, respectively.

The first announcement was by smart-ring maker Oura, which announced that the newest generation of its hardware will now be able to support the company’s newly designed “pregnancy insights experience,” enabling users to engage with a personalized pregnancy tracking tool. The ring will be able to track a variety of datasets and metrics such as temperature, heart rate and respiratory rate in order to better provide users a more macroscopic understanding of their pregnancy health. Additionally, the application ecosystem will also provide insights based on collected metrics as well as baseline figures for users to compare with, in addition to educational content, ranging from methods for better sleep to prenatal fitness. As Neta Gotlieb, staff product manager at Oura indicates, pregnancy is among the most important and significant events for users; this also provides ample opportunity to leverage technology to better understand one’s own body.

The second announcement was by famed women’s and family health provider, Maven Clinic, which indicated that it will be launching new cycle tracking and male fertility tools. Per Kate Rydr, CEO and founder of the company, “people need better support and they need it earlier on. Together these new features are bringing better consumer health to families while building on Maven’s ultimate goal: helping people find their shortest, safest and most affordable path to a healthy baby.” With this new launch, Maven’s tracker will provide personalized predictions and flag irregularities based on each individual’s cycle. In addition, Maven will now offer males with semen-analysis kits that can be used at-home. The company is hoping to bring these products together to empower members with a comprehensive ecosystem for fertility testing.

Why are digital health companies innovating heavily in this space?

Because fertility and pregnancy have become incredibly important topics in recent years for the general consumer. The American Society for Reproductive Medicine has indicated that there is skyrocketing demand for fertility treatments, year after year. Furthermore, fertility rates globally have decreased; per Dr. Natalia Kanem, head of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), “The world has begun an unprecedented decline in fertility rates…Most people surveyed want two or more children. Fertility rates are falling in large part because many feel unable to create the families they want. And that is the real crisis.” In fact, even mainstream celebrities have opined on the matter. Technology billionaire Elon Musk has been incredibly vocal on the subject, repeatedly discussing the need for increased fertility and how low birth rates will eventually collapse civilization.

Why the drastic decline? Experts cite many reasons, ranging from increased child care costs, shifting paradigms on education, lack of opportunities for adults of child-bearing age and perhaps most prevalent, worsening lifestyle factors that are inevitably leading to health conditions and infertility.

This also means that there is surging demand for both unique research in this arena and treatment options for individuals that are seeking to have children; with new technological modalities, opportunities for these individuals to better track and personalize their journey is certainly within reach.

Undoubtedly, this field is still very much in its early days, and there is surely more innovation to come on this front. Perhaps the most important piece, however, remains raising awareness and emphasizing research for this area of healthcare.