The Best At-Home Fertility Tests

Are you just starting to feel the tick-tock of your biological clock? Or maybe you’ve been trying for a while and things just haven’t been clicking? That’s okay—you have more options than ever when it comes to taking your fertility into your own hands! Wisp has teamed up with Proov to offer you at-home fertility testing so you can gain valuable insights into your personal fertility.

What is needed for successful conception

In order to conceive successfully, you need 4 primary ingredients:

• An egg
• A sperm
• Correctly timed intercourse or insemination
• A healthy uterus for implantation

If you’re missing any of these factors, it can negatively impact your ability to conceive.

How does female fertility work?

There’s a lot of different factors that can affect a person’s ability to conceive and carry a baby to term, but a good place to start is with ovulation! Typically, ovulation occurs right in the middle of your menstrual cycle, about two weeks before your period. Your ovary releases an egg, which travels through the fallopian tube. This is where it may be fertilized by a sperm and become an embryo, which will continue to travel from the fallopian tube to implant in the uterus.

Note: You may have heard of ectopic pregnancies. During these types of pregnancies, the egg is fertilized, but the embryo implants somewhere other than the uterus—almost all ectopic pregnancies occur in the fallopian tubes. A fallopian tube is only about 0.2 to 0.6 inches in diameter—as a result, a developing fetus can easily rupture a fallopian tube, which can cause life-threatening bleeding without proper medical care. Ectopic pregnancies are not viable pregnancies and a ruptured fallopian tube is considered a medical emergency—if you suspect you may be experiencing an ectopic pregnancy, seek in-person medical care immediately.

What hormones are involved in female fertility?

There are 4 primary hormones that act as markers of female fertility:

• FSH (follicle stimulating hormone): FSH is the hormone responsible for selecting the follicle to ovulate in a given cycle and can provide insight into ovarian reserve (the number of eggs you have left).
• E1G (estrogen marker): A hormone marker that prepares the uterus to receive a pregnancy and it signals the opening of the fertile window—the 5-6 days each cycle with the highest possibility of getting pregnant.
• LH-beta (beta subunit of luteinizing hormone): This hormone “spikes” right before ovulation to cause the egg to be released—knowing when this occurs can help you time intercourse or insemination and PdG testing.
• PdG (progesterone marker): A hormone marker released after ovulation that supports implantation and confirms successful ovulation. Studies show that elevated PdG levels during the luteal phase (specifically during the implantation window) correlate to a 92% chance of successful pregnancy compared to just a 19% chance with lower PdG levels.

Proov’s Complete Testing System helps you track all 4 of these fertility markers so you can better understand your personal ovulation cycle and fertility rhythms, and apply that knowledge on your road to parenthood!

Why we love Proov

Unlike other ovulation tests that just track the fertile window, Proov is the only brand that also tracks your ovarian reserve (egg count), as well as the implantation window, giving you a more comprehensive view of your fertility. This bird's eye view can help you identify more red flags that could lead to difficulty conceiving.

What about male fertility?

Of course, it takes two to tango. Male fertility is part of the equation too! We already know that the business of baby-making can get a little… messy, so is it really possible to test male fertility at home? Modern science says yes! You can now have sperm testing delivered to your door and check out sperm quality and quantity from the comfort of home.

First, let’s take a look at what factors influence male fertility—it’s really all about the number of sperm and how well they move. In order for a single sperm to fertilize an egg, it needs to be healthy and properly formed—this means it has the correct shape, a powerful tail, and a single head. Sperm that aren’t formed correctly won’t be able to swim the distance to make it to the egg. They typically have to travel 12-18 centimeters, and sperm are only about 1/6000 cm long! Additionally, cervical mucus in the female reproductive tract filter out abnormal sperm—having only 4-10% normally-shaped sperm is actually completely normal! This is why sperm count is so important—while it only takes one sperm to fertilize an egg, the higher the sperm count, the more chances that a healthy sperm will be able to complete its journey.

How does sperm testing at home work?

Proov’s Hers & His Advanced Fertility Test includes their Complete Testing System and their YO Sperm Test in one convenient bundle, so you can learn about your fertility as a couple. You’ll get three key results with the Proov + YO Sperm Test:

• Motile Sperm Concentration (MSC): This is a measure of how many properly swimming sperm are in your sample. The normal range for MSC is greater than 6 million sperm per milliliter.
  
• YO Score Quality Ranking: This ranking compares your MSC to the results of other men who have fathered children and helps you understand over time how any changes you make are improving your fertility.
  
• Live video of your sample: This can be shared with your doctor, or kept private. All of these results will also be paired with recommendations for ways to improve your sperm health, like lifestyle changes and male fertility supplements. You can easily test again in the future to see if any changes you make are helping!
  

Testing your fertility at home is simple and it puts the power of your fertility into your hands, literally. Gaining these valuable, personalized insights allows you to feel empowered in your fertility journey and gives you access to the knowledge that only your doctor would have had a few short years ago! When it comes to reproductive care, Wisp is with you every step of the way.

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