Six Birth Control Apps Worth Checking Out
I’m sure you heard about the #teamiPhone vs. #teamAndroid Instagram beef last week. Can’t we all just get along, guys? Thank goodness for the wonderful world of birth control—it offers something for everyone! Hopefully you’ve already checked out and taken advantage of Bedsider’s custom cheeky text message reminders for birth control and medical appointments. They boast nifty features like a snooze function and a “discreet” option for the faint of, umm…frisky.
If you’re craving even more birth-control-related technology, these swipe-able, tap-able, colorful apps are good resources, too. Need a helpful text, an ovulation reminder, or a condom tracker? There’s an app for that. Since prevention is literally at your fingertips, there are no excuses—no matter what kind of phone you have. (Except for the BlackBerrys. Jk!)
The datebooks and calendars of yesteryear can be nixed. My True Cycle tracks the peak of a female user’s ovulation. “You’ll enter three pieces of information on the website or your phone each morning: your temperature, your fertility symptoms, and whether it’s the first day of your period,” reads the website.
MeFertil’s iPhone app is designed for those who “are trying to get pregnant or looking for a natural, hormone-free contraceptive method.” Its convenience lies in the fact that paper charting isn’t necessary…you can keep temperature information and track any fertility medication with one swipe.
Oh, New York. The concrete jungle where plenty of dreams are made…and sometimes babies, too. To prevent an even more populous city, the local health department launched their NYC Condom Finder app on Valentine’s Day. It’s simple: type in your address or use your iPhone or Android GPS and the tracker will direct you to the nearest venue with free condoms. The app is a free download as well.
Have you heard of MTV’s Staying Alive Campaign? It’s their global initiative to fight HIV/AIDS. Ther iCondom app is very similar to the NYC Condom Finder, but this digital download is a national effort. The directions instruct users to “simply upload the location of your nearest condom dispenser or retailer via GPS” to create a user-generated map of condom dispensers and retailers.
The Android app iPill is definitely going for the gold in versatility. For $2.99, you get “specific reminders for over 90 pill, patch, ring and IUD prescriptions.” There are also reality-inducing alarms that you can use, like a baby’s cry. Um, yikes.
Seems myPill was launched with visual types in mind. This iPhone app has an interactive graphic that looks just like a four week pack. As each day passes, a pill disappears (see helpful screen capture). How cool is that?
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Khalea Underwood is an intern for the digital media team of The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. When she’s not writing, shopping, or listening to music, the Howard University print journalism student moonlights as an older sister, a contributor for MTVIggy.com, and a copy editor for The Hilltop newspaper.
