Saliva Test Helps Pinpoint Fertile Days

BALTIMORE -- Every year, more than 9 million women seek medical help in getting pregnant.

Knowing when you are ovulating is important, but it isn't always easy. For some women, it requires taking and charting their temperatures every day or using urine tests, but now all you need is a little saliva.

Dr. Karen Perkins from Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore said when a woman ovulates, there's an increase in salt production in the saliva.

"When you take some saliva and dry it, you see the way the salt crystallizes," she said. "When it dries, it creates a fern pattern, and that's what we look for."

The ovulation scope, a new product approved by the Food and Drug Administration, contains a mini-microscope. A woman places a small amount of saliva on a slide and allows it to dry. Instead of dots, she'll see that ferning pattern if she's fertile.

Perkins said the device will be a real help to women trying to get pregnant and it is 98 percent accurate.

"Hopefully she can better understand of what her cycle is doing before we resort to anything more expensive," Perkins said.

The ovulation scope is the size of a tube of lipstick. It costs less than $29 and can be used over and over again by just washing it. It is available at Target, Wal-Mart, Kmart and Rite Aid.