Computer technology in birth control

Press, 25 February 1981, Page 5

Computer technology in birth control

NZPA London Scientists working in London have found a way to apply computer technology to birth control. The development of an electronic thermometer that tells a woman when she is infertile has brought advanced computer science to the only form of birth control permitted by the Roman Catholic Church — the rhythm method. The Church bans artificial contraception. The device, which the inventors call an intelligence thermometer, was developed by a World Health Organisation team of four scientists — three Britons and an American — at the Medical Research Council centre in Harrow, north-west London. The woman placed the thermometer in her mouth for three minutes, said Dr Heinz Wolff, the head of the centre’s bio-engineer-ing unit. The thermometer is attached by a wire to a bedside clock containing a micro-chip which acts as a computer monitoring the temperature during a woman’s menstrual cycle. It gives a green “go ahead” light when the safe period is reached. The device had proved 100 per cent reliable in recording the fertility cycle of 500 women who took part in tests, Dr Wolff said. But he warned: “This method can never be as safe as the pill or a mechanical contraceptive. It depends on voluntary abstinence for the fertile period, which is about half the month.”

Apart from Roman Catholics obedient to their Church’s dictates on birth control, the researchers say the device will also appeal to ccuples who do not want to use mechanical methods crntinually, and older women worried about the effects of the pill. “We will be able to get the packaging down much smaller,” Dr Wolff said. “It could be contained in, say, a necklace which the woman wears.” About 100 of the thermometers will be supplied to British family planning clinics in the next six months . Depending on demand, more will go on sale by the end of the year. The W.H.O. also plans

to distribute the device in Third World countries. The thermometer and clock will cost between $l2O and $240 initially, but only about $24 when mass-produced. “We have not, of course, found a new con-

traceptive nithod,” said Dr Wolff. “We have computerised something that people have been doing using paper and pencil charts for yeans. As when calculators we invented, it did not change the seven-times table.”