[Music]
you
[Music]
there is no period in a woman's life
where she's more exposed to useless
statistics and preconceptions than we're
just trying to conceive and when she's
pregnant it covers everything from which
food she's supposed to eat to which
sexual position is the most likely to
get her pregnant for me it started
already before trying to conceive with
my mom telling me oh you gotta be for a
child I was super fertile thanks mom but
don't you think most people had fur to
her parents well my husband and I
started trying to conceive the
misconceptions about my body started
lining up
I just gotten off the pill and I naively
assumed I would have 28-day cycles and I
would late on day 15 because that's what
the average woman does about a week
after my assumed revelation
I'll get this pain in my lower abdomen
which I would interpret as a first
science of pregnancy my expectations
would go through the roof every month
but the months kept passing by and no
baby on the way what I felt was a
relation pain I was already doing much
later than I thought everything I had
learned about the average female body
simply didn't apply to me
my favorite Swedish poets Korean boy I
wrote yes there is goal and meaning with
our journey but it's a way there that is
worth a while I believe that to be true
with everything in life except this
particular journey what starts out as a
fun seductive game completely loses its
charm after six months when you come to
partner with sad hollow eyes saying we
must have sex now it's not a turn-on I
can tell you however going through this
journey together with my husband turn
out to be a great experience for what
was to become my next step as head of
data science
at Ava a Swiss startup I spend the last
four years in a team helping other
couples get pregnant faster by using
data from their menstrual cycles to
build algorithms telling them when is
the best time for them to conceive
there's a huge gap between what the
statistics tell you about the average
female cycle and the individual cycle of
a woman this is a gap we've been trying
to bridge using data and algorithms when
we think about the cycle we mainly think
about the bleeding but that is actually
the least interesting part and just a
sign that everything is working as it
should and that our bodies are doing its
job the bleeding marks the beginning and
the end of the cycle so that's easy
enough to recognize but it's much
trickier to recognize what's happening
in between ovulation happens one
somewhere in the middle of the cycle and
if you want to get pregnant this is what
you're interested in it's only during
the six days leading up to a relation
that you can actually get pregnant or to
be honest this number is also statistics
so for you it can be anything between
two and a half and seven and a half days
depending on your age and other factors
so what can you do to figure out when
your fertile days are to explain that I
would first like to tell you a little
bit about how the hormones changes over
the cycle and I will especially focus on
two of them because they are important
not only for your fertility but because
they influence your entire body and
these are estrogen and progesterone
estrogen starts to rise during the
second quarter of your cycle and this is
your fertile phase many of us become
more aroused in this phase which is of
course a smart trick of nature to make
sure we keep reproducing apparently
we're also more attractive in this face
studies have shown that lap dancers
receive more tip if they're working in
their fertile face
around ovulation progesterone starts to
rise the role of the progesterone is to
build up the wall of the uterus so that
if fertilized the egg can implant and
start growing if the egg is not
fertilized and you're not pregnant all
the hormones would drop back to the
baseline again it's actually this job
that is believed to be the reasons
behind premenstrual syndrome so if
someone ever tells you you've been
hormonal at the end of your cycle they
couldn't be more wrong it's quite the
opposite actually so next question what
can you do and how can you use data to
understand how your hormones are
changing let me show you this is my own
menstrual cycle what you see is how I've
tracked three different physiological
parameters over the cycle its pulse rate
temperature and breathing rate all those
fluctuations you see over the cycle are
really linked to my change in hormones
if you first look at pulse rate you see
that pulse rate starts to increase
already during my first phase as an
indication that I was soon of you late
seeing that pulse rate increases already
before ovulation is surprisingly a very
new finding that was only possible due
to the new wearable technologies on the
market this is of course something we
have used in our algorithms to help
other women find out when they are
fertile if you now look at temperature
and breathing rate you can see that both
of them starts to increase just after my
fertile face that is a pedestrian that
was kicked in and it's driving all those
parameters up this is a good sign it
means that I have been ovulating and
that my hormones are in balance you must
have a very careful and know the
limitations of the methods you use to
track your cycle an example of how
sensitive your data can be you can see
here in the beginning in pulse rate you
suddenly see a strong spike in pulse
rate
but I'm afraid it's a little bit too
much alcohol knowing what alcohol does
Madeira is also why I chose not to track
my data here on May 18th which o my
fellow sweets would know was Eurovision
night yeah I know not so cool in
Switzerland but I'm Swedish after all so
if you're not trying to get pregnant why
should even care about your menstrual
cycle um healthy cycle is important for
so many factors linked to your health
the balance between estrogen and
progesterone are crucial factors to
protect you against heart disease
osteoporosis dementia and much more even
though it turned out myself I was
perfectly within the statistical
distribution both with regards to my
cycles and to the outcome of her efforts
it was still a hard struggle with a lot
of strains on our relationship it would
have helped us so much if I would have
known my body better at that time
because statistics did not help us
conceive there were however other
moments when statistics did help us like
the time I went for the first ultrasound
and it turned out that the fetus didn't
have a heartbeat it never feels like
statistics to you but knowing that 15 to
25 percent of all pregnancies and with
miscarriage within the first 12 weeks
could at least help us know that we were
normal so we didn't panic I'm not saying
that technology will solve all your
troubles but as you see by tracking your
physiological data you cannot only
understand when you're fertile you can
also get an indication if your hormones
are varying as they should
modern wearable technologies can be a
great help but it's not the only way
simply paying attention to the more
subtle science of your body can also
help you can either learn how to
interpret the data yourself or you can
have algorithms help you do the job we
are so much more than what statistics
three
to statistics is there to spot the rare
outliers and to tell the doctors when we
need treatment if you're not so comforta
us know that we're within the norm so do
learn about the stats but remember
within what's considered normal they can
still be a huge variation and just as
the averages did not help me they will
probably not help you so if I can give
you some advice
make sure to track your data even if
it's only for a short while because only
with your own personal data can you hack
into them and truly understand your own
body thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
you
[Music]