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Fertility kits are designed to help you track your fertility throughout the month by testing for the luteinizing hormone in your saliva or urine. This hormone is what surges in your body to trigger ovulation, so it increases in concentration in your body one or two days right before ovulation. When your body is showing a higher concentration of the luteinizing hormone (LH), you’ll know it’s time to start having intercourse in hopes of conceiving a child.

There are many kits for fertility on the market right now, and they offer different advantages and disadvantages. In general, these kits are meant to be used in conjunction with natural family planning, which will help you recognize your body’s natural fertility signals. Using them with basal body temperature and vaginal mucous tracking can help you keep from having to test for LH every day, since you’ll have some idea of when you’re about to ovulate.

Deciding on the right ovulation prediction kit can be tough because there are simply so many different options, but here’s some information to help you choose the right kit for your needs.

Fertility Tests for Estrogen and LH

Some of the more expensive fertility testing kits on the market test for both estrogen levels and LH levels. Basically, these tests are better at showing how close you are to ovulation within a week rather than just one or two days because you estrogen levels rise throughout your cycle and peak just before ovulation. These tests, such as the ClearBlue Easy Fertility Monitor, can be expensive, but the handheld device is the expensive part, and it can be used for several years.

One of the advantages of electronic tests like this one is that they can tell you which days to test yourself. You set the first day of your period as day one, and then the monitor will ask you to test your urine on a stick throughout your cycle, depending on its readings. Plus, it can tell you not only if you’re fertile or infertile but also how fertile you actually are.

Kits for LH Alone

Another type of urine test that is simpler and cheaper is the ovulation prediction kit. Basically, you get a stick that looks a lot like a pregnancy test, and you use urine to determine your LH levels. One of the things that you should know for this type of test is that you need to know about when you ovulate. These tests can be costly if you buy a lot of them, so it’s silly to test for fertility every day throughout your cycle. Instead, use natural family planning or a simple counting technique based on the length of your average cycle to find out which days you should test.

Microscopic Saliva Kit

This one is particularly interesting and can also be effective. Instead of testing for a hormone, it actually tests the construction of your saliva, which changes when you get closer to ovulation. The kit comes with a microscope, as well as several slides for testing urine. When a woman wakes up, she licks a test strip and lets the saliva dry. Then, she or her partner examines the saliva under the microscope, looking for a fern-shaped crystal pattern that signals fertility.

Which Fertility Kit is Best for You?

The fertility checking kit you choose will depend on your needs and your situation. If you need an affordable test, it’s probably best to combine natural family planning techniques with test sticks, which can be affordable if you don’t use a new one every day. If, on the other hand, you’ve been having trouble getting pregnant and want to do everything you can to conceive, you might want to use one of the more expensive electronic tests, which will give you a longer window of fertility and a higher chance of getting pregnant each month.