FDA approves app to prevent pregnancy; would you try it?

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - It's easy to find, an app with more than 500,000 downloads. It's called Natural Cycles and it's used for pregnancy prevention and ovulation tracking, which it's now approved by the FDA.

Dr. Mazen Abdallah with UTHealth/Children’s Memorial Hermann Hospital says, “How the app works is, it relies on the baseline body temperature because our temperature at baseline without us being moving or generating any heat, so it is best checked early in the morning when you wake up after a good night's sleep.”

This is also known as the rhythm method, one of the oldest pregnancy prevention methods. "We’ve actually, in our line of work, we've been using it for a while to time ovulation and time intercourse for fertility," Dr. Abdallah says.

When you download the app, you have to decide if you want the free trial version or to pay for the full $80 package, which required you to use a thermometer daily and then keeps a log of when you're ovulating.

“Well I think it’s a good idea for I guess younger people, so it all depends on the age, but I think it’s a good idea to be informed any way possible,” says Kim Watts.

“If it was between the pills, condoms and this, I would say pills right now because we don’t know about this,” says Sheree Waddell.