Study backing $330 fertility prediction tool Daysy retracted due to 'fundamental flaws'

A March 2018 study claiming the Daysy fertility tracking system had a 99.4 percent accuracy rate for planning or preventing pregnancy was retracted by the journal Reproductive Health on May 14.

In its retraction notice, the journal wrote, "Independent post-publication peer review has confirmed that there are fundamental flaws in the methodology which mean that the conclusions are unreliable due to selection bias and the retrospective self-reporting of whether pregnancies were intentional."

Reproductive Health began investigating the study after Chelsea Polis, PhD, a senior research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute, published a report in the journal in June 2018 calling the previous study "fatally flawed." The journal noted that the original study's authors do not agree with the retraction and stand by their findings.

Daysy, from Swiss medtech company Valley Electronics, retails for $330 and is comprised of an advanced thermometer and accompanying DaysyView app, which use a proprietary "intelligent algorithm" to determine fertility phases and give other insights into users' menstrual cycles.

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