Predicting Ovulation Using Saliva

A Review of the Ovulite Fertility Test

By Lyn Mettler

If you're trying to conceive and want help learning exactly when you are ovulating, there are several ovulation predictors on the market that can help. Some of the newest to enter the fray are ovulation predictors that allow you to test your saliva for the presence of estrogen instead of using those that test your urine for lutenizing hormone (LH).

The latest on the scene in the saliva testers is Ovulite, manufactured by Dynamic Health, LLC.

Saliva-based ovulation predictors test for estrogen in your saliva. You'll know it's there by the tell-tale "fern-like" patterns it produces when you view it through the accompanying microscope. Once you see these patterns and they are dominant throughout the specimen, then, according to Ovulite makers, ovulation is already occurring or is imminent, and you are at your optimal fertile period.

With Ovulite, you collect a saliva sample in the morning before eating or drinking anything by swiping the slide under your tongue. You let it dry, snap it into the lipstick-sized microscope and take a peek by pressing a button that lights up the light bulb and focusing the lens, enabling you to see the specimen. If you're not fertile, you'll see a random pattern of spots and lines.

But gathering the specimen is not as easy as it sounds. For one, you have to do it first thing in the morning before you've eaten anything (which, if you're anything like me, is difficult to remember as you're headed to the kitchen in your just-woken-up haze). Otherwise, the results are not accurate, and you will likely miss the estrogen if it is there.

I also found that getting the right amount of saliva on the slide is a slight problem. If you get too little, you're just not going to see much. So I tended to overdo it, but then it takes forever to dry (much longer than the seven to 10 minutes they tell you to allow before viewing the saliva). And you don't want to try to look at it before it's dry, because then it's running off the slide, messing up the sample (gross, I know). You're also not supposed to get air bubbles in the sample -- a true feat. It may take you a few tries of depositing and then cleaning the lens to start over before you get it right.

Want to see more?

• Fertility Awareness: What You Should Know and Why You Probably Don't
• The Right Timing: The Art of Tracking Your Fertility
• The Power of Prediction: How Ovulation Testers Can Help
• Talk about it!