Flash gadget a hot option for checking on fertility

By CATHERINE TOWNSEND

Fifty years after the contraceptive pill supposedly liberated women, many are searching for more organic alternatives after suffering distressing side-effects. And, perhaps surprisingly, a fertility computer is quietly staging a comeback for women who are looking for something else.

The Lady-Comp - little bigger than a portable CD player - works by measuring a woman's body temperature first thing in the morning, and warns of ovulation through a series of "traffic light" alerts.

So far, nine clinical trials of Lady-Comp have been conducted in Europe, including one of 10,000 menstrual cycles involving 648 women in Switzerland and Germany.

The German manufacturer, Valley Electronics, claims that the device has a 99.3 per cent success rate - "as safe as the pill" - on "green light" days.

Valley Electronics - which handles the bulk of European orders - says about 70,000 Lady-Comps are in circulation in Germany and 30,000 throughout Mexico, Canada, Switzerland, Austria, Norway and Italy. They are already winning plaudits from medical experts in the United States and Canada and - pending approval from the US Food and Drug Administration - should hit American drugstore shelves within months.

The system appeals to women looking for a more organic alternative.

"I got sick of pumping my body full of hormones," says Christina, a 30-year-old west London devotee who lives with her boyfriend, and bought the device a year ago.

I really got to know my own cycle, which was impossible with the pill because I taking so many hormones."

Dr Hubertus Rechberg, a German management consultant with a PhD in economics, invented the system after his wife got cramps in her legs at night while she was taking the contraceptive pill.

The design is straightforward: the computer wakes the user with a musical alarm and a thermometer uncoils. The device, put under her tongue for 30 seconds, measures her basal body temperature, analysing it against a database of thousands of other women's cycles. Then, based on the fact that the temperature rises around the time of ovulation, Lady-Comp predicts when she is most likely to get pregnant.

A red light means she must avoid sex or use a contraceptive. Green means go for it and yellow equals "uncertain". During ovulation, a woman gets a flashing red light.

"Yellow means that the system is still learning a woman's cycle," says a spokeswoman for distributors Natural Methods. "After she uses the system for a while she will get very few yellow days."

A flashing letter "M" for menstruation tells the user when she's due to get her period. The system also allows for irregular cycles, and if a woman is sick and has a high temperature, it skips that day.

Although Lady-Comp's creators say the technology is the key to its success, some believe that it could lull women into a false sense of security.

"I would be very sceptical of any attempt to blind people with science, because a woman's temperature can go up for a variety of reasons, then go back down," says Roy Husemeyer, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at Lincoln County Hospital. "What other people are doing is of no consequence, since each woman's cycle is so individual."

The manufacturers say an average user gets about 10-12 green and eight to 10 red days a month. Some women say it is more conservative.

"It gives me a lot of red-light days - this month I have had 12 so far," says Christina. But after suffering an accidental pregnancy using ANOTHER fertility computer, she says the Lady-Comp has proved much more reliable.

Mary, a British user who has written a web page chronicling her experience over four years of using the device, appreciates the new understanding it has given her of her body. "It has put me more in touch with my own cycle. I like getting two days' notice before my period starts. I like knowing that I'm ovulating regularly."

Natural contraception can be an effective method for the right person, says the Family Planning Association.

"It's a really good and effective form of contraception," a spokeswoman says, "but our view is that women should be trained by a teacher to understand all of the signs."

Of course, some remain sceptical.

A spokeswoman for sexual and reproductive health organisation Marie Stopes International says the charity would not recommend the device, although she admits not being familiar with it.

"A woman has a 4 per cent chance of conceiving on any day without contraception, and a 28 per cent chance on fertile days," she says.

And many British women remember another fertility computer, Persona, promoted as "the biggest thing to happen to contraception since the 1960s" when it hit the country's shelves in 1996.

Hailed as a breakthrough for women who could not take the pill, Persona was even endorsed by the Vatican.

But the system, which relied on women testing their urine several times a month, soon had Marie Stopes International estimating that an extra 60 women a month were seeking abortions.

The device developed a reputation as a flop, and in 2002, 63 women who had become pregnant sued the manufacturer, Unipath, which claimed a 94 per cent success rate. A Unipath spokesman declined to comment on the pending litigation.

Cost is another factor: at €745 ($2170), Lady-Comp is not cheap. But the manufacturer points out that there is no need to order follow-up supplies. It claims the average life expectancy of a Lady-Comp is eight to 10 years. Women can also send their computers to be analysed for fertility problems.

Although no method is perfect, women find knowing about their cycles "empowering".

As Mary writes on her website: "It will not stop you from catching diseases, but gives you information on how to work with your body to avoid, or promote, pregnancy."

MEANS OF CONTROL

The quest for perfect birth control has seen men and women try almost everything, including:

* Drinking potions containing lead and mercury (China, as much as 4000 years ago).

* Condoms. Their use goes back at least 3000 years, to the ancient Egyptians. Condoms dating from 1640 have been found in the foundations of Dudley Castle, in Britain.

* Vaginal sponges soaked in brandy (France, 17th century).

* Dried beaver testicles mixed with liquor (Canada, as recently as the 19th century).

* Supposed spermicides such as ground dates, acacia bark, honey - even elephant and crocodile dung.

* The pill (approved for distribution in the US in 1960).

- INDEPENDENT