Japanese Cell Phone Says: Baby, It's Time

This story caught my eye today: A new mobile phone offered by Japan's NTT DoCoMo Inc. will alert women who want to get pregnant when they've reached the most fertile time in their monthly reproductive cycles.

It's based on average cycles and is hardly a foolproof system because of it. But isn't there something intriguing about employing a cell phone, which has become an integral part of many women's daily lives, to help women not miss one of the most important "appointments" in our lives?

By entering past menstruation dates, a woman can program the phone to alert her three days before ovulation and again on the day. The phone is the brainchild of designer Momoko Ikuto, Reuters reports, and it also has some other features: a recipe database and a side "camouflage melody" button that allows a woman to get out of an unwanted conversation by pretending to get a call.

Its debut in Japan follows a decline in the country's birth rate. The average number of children a Japanese woman bears fell to 1.25 in 2005, an all-time low.

How do you think a phone like this would play here in the states? Surely, women who want to get pregnant are using all kinds of sophisticated tools to get their timing right. Would a cell phone alert really make the difference?