About the Added Bonus of Folliculogenesis Monitoring – Automatic Pregnancy Detection

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It will really be advisable for women to use the Ovulona™ personal fertility monitor as advocated. Whether pregnancy is hoped for or pregnancy-avoidance is the purpose, diligent routine use of the Ovulona will bring benefits.

What benefits? Not only the correct scientific reckoning of the expected period of gestation (usually spoken of as the EDD or EDC) but also the subject of this article: The automatic immediate detection of pregnancy, which is built into the bioZhena process of menstrual cycle (folliculogenesis) monitoring.

See and hear about this in the narrated slide at https://biozhena.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/single-slide-narrated-best-wealth-of-info-in-menstrual-cycle-profile-signature.pps . Here is an image of the slide:

We expect that the personal cervix monitoring will be continued after conception has been detected – whether planned or unplanned – for the reason of watching out for or guarding against the possibility of early pregnancy loss (EPL).

Immediate detection

The detection of EPL is based on the understanding of the post-ovulation part of the menstrual cyclic profile signature. In the event of an EPL, the menstrual cyclic profile (which cannot physiologically continue after conception and/or implantation occurs) is logically expected to come back, alerting the woman to try getting pregnant again as soon as possible. This urgency is to reduce the probability of recurring spontaneous abortion as documented in medical literature.

As a 2010 study concluded: Women who conceive within six months of an initial miscarriage have the best reproductive outcomes and lowest complication rates in a subsequent pregnancy. You can read a CNN article about the British Medical Journal published study at http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/08/05/miscarriage.try.again.asap/ . We cite the original BMJ publication at the very end of this post.

“Ask Medical Doctor” [http://www.askmedicaldoctor.com ] is a web site that provides numerous examples where it follows that our Ovulona™ personal fertility device will be just what the customer needs. And her OBGYN, too.

As an example, here is a posted question (courtesy of @pregnancydoc tweet) [http://www.askmedicaldoctor.com/medical/doctor/index.php?xq=63935 ]:

“I quit the nuva ring at the end of november, and had a short cycle. I was only on it for a month. My husband an I are trying to conceive. Last week I had a blood pregnancy test, which was negative. As well as the week before. Now I’m almost a week late. I’ve also experienced a little bit of breast tenderness, stomach tenderness, and lower back pain. what’s up?”

Answer by Dr.Bhumika Aggarwal on Fri 08, Jan 2010 10:33pm:

“Hi, Yes you could be pregnant. The only way to know the confirmed cause is a clinical examination by an OBG specialist and if required an ultrasound examination. You could take a urine pregnancy test at home – that would only help a week after you have missed your periods. You should get a blood test for beta HCG levels which would confirm or rule out a pregnancy. This is confirmatory for pregnancy in cases where the urine pregnancy test kit is not helpful. It would be best to consult your doctor without any delay. Regards.”

Commenting on the Ovulona advantage

The above case is not unusual, including the fact that, after quitting hormonal contraception, the menstrual cycle(s) will tend to be short, out of whack. More to the point, however, is that, with the routinely used Ovulona, pregnancy will be detected immediately, by the disappearance of the follicular waves normally appearing in the luteal phase of the cycle [the days after ovulation], whether the cycle is short, long or what have you.

Where the physician talks about the urine and blood pregnancy testing is where it gets interesting. When Dr. B. A. writes, “that would only help a week after you have missed your periods”, with the Ovulona the detection will be immediate and, importantly, the Ovulona will make it possible to monitor the progress of the pregnancy. Where the doctor writes, “You should get a blood test”, that will no longer be the only option for the woman in the early days of uncertainty about her pregnancy status, or in the subsequent early stage of pregnancy.

The point is this: The hCG level in the blood shows the presence of the conceptus, and the immediate disappearance of the follicular waves is expected to show the presence of the conceptus before the hCG test can. The reason is that the hCG test requires a certain minimal level of the human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG) to be reached, and then the blood concentration peaks on the analytical instrument’s readout that the service lab will use.

This is how the pregnancy shows in the lab test for hCG:

Conceptus signature – small

Figure from Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 96 (6): 2678–81 (March 1999)

http://www.pnas.org/content/96/6/2678.figures-only or http://to.ly/OYI

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_chorionic_gonadotropin, or http://www.webmd.com/baby/human-chorionic-gonadotropin-hcg .

“Once the fertilized egg implants, the developing placenta begins releasing hCG into your blood.” “hCG appears in the blood and urine of pregnant women as early as 10 days after conception” [http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003510.htm ].

“In non-pregnant women, hCG levels are normally undetectable. During early pregnancy, the placenta produces hCG and its level in the blood doubles every two to four days” [http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/Safety/AlertsandNotices/TipsandArticlesonDeviceSafety/ucm109390.htm ].

Nothing is perfect, and “hCG kits can detect a wide and varying range of different hCG-related molecules in serum or urine samples” rather than just the one molecule they want to detect [http://www.hcglab.com/index.html ].

“The primary role of hCG in the maternal organism is to serve as a signal to the ovary to maintain the corpus luteum, which would regress if it were not rescued by hCG. … It appears that exponentially increasing amounts of hCG are required to prolong the functional lifespan of the corpus luteum, which explains why the corpus luteum survives early pregnancy but regresses during unfertilized menstrual cycles…” [Parry, S, Glob. libr. women’s med., (ISSN: 1756-2228) 2008 http://to.ly/P0z ]. Corpus luteum (yellow body) is defined as a yellow, progesterone-secreting, mass of cells that forms from an ovarian follicle after the release of a mature egg (i.e., ovulation), http://to.ly/P0B . It is what becomes of the follicle after ovulation.

How it works

Against that background, we bring up the following expected effect of conception on the folliculogenesis profile as it is tracked by the Ovulona and used by the woman at home. The data accumulated in the memory of the device will be available for use by her physician and the healthcare system.

Précis: When conception occurs, the normal folliculogenesis process changes due to the developing pregnancy (i.e., due to the conceptus). Conception can only occur upon ovulation, and when it does then the change happens – immediately. The follicular waves that normally occur after ovulation can no longer appear.

Upon conception, the maternal menstrual cycling is overruled, taken over, by the conceptus and the placenta. Conceptus is defined as the product of conception at any point between fertilization and birth. It includes the embryo or the fetus as well as the extra-embryonic membranes [http://to.ly/P0t , conceptus is from Latin, something conceived; see concept].

The disappearance of the follicular waves will be immediate, and easily detectable. Importantly, as with the monitoring of folliculogenesis for the purpose of either achieving or avoiding pregnancy, it will be presented to the woman at home in plain English as “pregnancy detected” on the display of her Ovulona device.

A very important (and unprecedented) additional advantage of our technique is that any loss of the pregnancy will also be detected in the process of continued routine monitoring during the pregnancy. This is advisable because many conceptions end in natural loss, i.e., the early death of the conceptus. E. g., “absence of TLX antigen recognition due to sharing of maternal-paternal TLX antigen profiles may not allow anti-TA1 activity and may lead to subsequent fetal rejection”, http://www.profelis.org/webpages-cn/lectures/reproductive_physiology_2.html (http://to.ly/P1S ).

Seriousness of the EPL problem

Between one quarter and one third of pregnancies may fail hours or days after implantation [  http://www.hcglab.com/hyperglycosylated.htm , citing Prenat. Diagn. 1998;18:1232–40 and J. Endocrinol. 2002; 172: 497-506]. But see also Further References, below, where the incidence is put at 75%+ of all attempts to conceive – the most common complication of human gestation.

In view of the fact that “treatment of women who present with cramping and spotting in the first trimester of pregnancy would be better guided by a sensitive and specific test that would reliably categorize prognoses for pregnancies”, it is worthwhile to speculate as follows. Since “progesterone appeared to be the single most specific biomarker for distinguishing viable from nonviable pregnancies” [Obst. Gynecol. 2000, Vol. 95, Issue 2, pp. 227-231, http://to.ly/P39 ], and in view of our sensor’s mode of operation (and the expected response to conception), we might even speculate that differentiating between viable and non-viable pregnancies might be attempted with our technique, too.

As throughout the whole text in this article, speculate is the key word.

Further References:

Efficiency and Bias in Studies of Early Pregnancy Loss, Clarice R. Weinberg, Irva Hertz-Picciotto, Donna D. Baird and Allen J. Wilcox, Epidemiology, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Jan., 1992), pp. 17-22, http://to.ly/P3s

Early Pregnancy Loss,  http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/260495-overview Note: Chief Editor is Lee P. Shulman, MD – one of bioZhena Corporation’s Board of Medical Advisors.

Excerpted:

Early pregnancy loss is unfortunately the most common complication of human gestation, occurring in at least 75% of all women trying to conceive. Most of these losses are unrecognized and occur before or with the next expected menses. Of those that are recognized, 15-20% are spontaneous abortions (SABs) or ectopic pregnancies diagnosed after the pregnancy is clinically recognized.

The incidence of spontaneous miscarriage is10-15%, whereas the rate of recurrent miscarriage is 3-5%.

Approximately 5% of couples trying to conceive have 2 consecutive miscarriages, and approximately 1% of couples have 3 or more consecutive losses. Early pregnancy loss is defined as the termination of pregnancy before 20 weeks’ gestation or with a fetal weight of

The gestational age at the time of the SAB can provide clues about the cause. For instance, nearly 70% of SABs in the first 12 weeks are due to chromosomal anomalies. However, losses due to antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) and cervical incompetence tend to occur after the first trimester. END QUOTE.

Medline ® Abstracts for References 3-5,7-9 of ‘Spontaneous abortion: Risk factors, etiology, clinical manifestations, and diagnostic evaluation’ http://to.ly/P4e

Citing from one abstract on the list: “Preterm death of the human conceptus is common.”

Conclusion of a 2003 paper from China: We demonstrated substantial EPL in the non-clinically pregnant cycles and a positive relation between EPL and subsequent fertility. EPL = Early Pregnancy Loss. The conception rate per cycle was 40% over the first 12 months.

Conclusion of a 2010 British Medical Journal paper from Scotland: Women who conceive within six months of an initial miscarriage have the best reproductive outcomes and lowest complication rates in a subsequent pregnancy.                          

See it at: http://www.bmj.com/content/341/bmj.c3967.full?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Bhattacharya&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=date&resourcetype=HWCIT

Tags: baby, bioZhena, cervix uteri, conception, conceptus, electronic, fertility, folliculogenesis, hCG, hormone, ovulation, Ovulona, pregnancy, progesterone, women's health