A game-changer for people looking to plan or prevent pregnancy, Oura is compatible with Natural Cycles, the first FDA-cleared birth control app. The Natural Cycles (NC°) app works by analyzing body temperature and other key fertility indicators to determine your daily fertility status to plan or prevent pregnancy naturally.
When you integrate Oura with Natural Cycles, the NC° app will automatically sync your temperature trend data from your Oura Ring when you wake up in the morning. This eliminates the need to take your temperature with an oral thermometer upon waking up.
Plus, you’ll sleep soundly knowing that Oura’s temperature sensor is a near-perfect match with research-grade tools, attaining over 99% lab accuracy — and Oura’s latest sleep staging algorithm matches performance with the gold-standard PSG sleep lab test.
What’s more, Oura is also:
- Sleek, stylish, and comfortable to wear while you sleep
- Unobtrusive — no brightly lit screens
- Long-lasting with up to 7 days of battery life
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Knowledge is Power
Companies such as Oura and Natural Cycles are forging a new path in the reproductive health field, which has been historically underserved by medicine, science, and technology.
In 2018, FDA cleared Natural Cycles to become the first contraceptive app, making birth control history. With the integration with Oura Ring, Natural Cycles takes birth control one step further, providing women with an innovative and effortless experience to plan or prevent pregnancy without hormones.
Since the integration launched in August 2022, tens of thousands of women have enabled the Oura and Natural Cycles integration. And satisfaction is high: In a survey of over 4,000 members using the integration, 98% of respondents reported that they will continue using it to track their cycles.
Member Success Stories
For people using the integration, the use cases vary from planning to preventing pregnancy. Oura member Felicity V., for instance, integrated Oura and Natural Cycles to learn more about her fertility. She ended up conceiving within a month of integrating the apps!
“I was trying not to get my hopes up when I was two days late,” Felicity tells us. “Then the NC° app told me I might want to take a pregnancy test. So I did, and it was positive! It was mind-blowing. The technology is truly amazing.”
Other members, like Gabrielle B.. turn to Oura and Natural Cycles to manage their reproductive health and prevent pregnancy.
“I’ve used Natural Cycles since May 2017 on the birth control setting… [but] I struggled with consistently measuring my temperature trends in the morning,” Gabrielle told us. “The Oura integration was absolutely perfect. Since I set it up, I haven’t missed a single day of data.”
How to Use Oura to Power Natural Cycles
During the menstrual cycle, hormonal changes cause body temperature to rise after ovulation and drop when menstruation begins. Oura is able to detect these temperature trends because it measures your body temperature every minute, directly from the skin of your finger, while you sleep. The Natural Cycles algorithm uses the temperature trend data from Oura to determine your fertility status each day.
The temperature sensors in the Oura Ring generate 1,440 data points each day, and are validated to measure temperature changes as precisely as 0.13°C (0.23°F). In addition to temperature trend data, the Natural Cycles algorithm uses heart rate data from the Oura Ring to take into account nights with elevated heart rates, and hence also elevated temperatures, that may be due to lifestyle changes, such as high alcohol consumption or stress, rather than due to menstrual cycle changes.
Previously, Natural Cycles could only obtain temperature data by users manually taking their temperature each morning. Oura makes it easier to track your temperature fluctuations by syncing temperature trend data automatically — rather than requiring you to take your temperature with an oral thermometer upon waking up.
What’s more: Oura Ring is stylish, subtle, and seamlessly fits into your lifestyle. With up to seven days of battery life and the ability to fully charge in one to two hours, using Oura ensures you won’t miss a day of temperature trend tracking.
Get Started with Natural Cycles
How Oura Can Help You to Better Understand Your Cycle
Whether or not you’re syncing your data with Natural Cycles, taking note of your body temperature trends on your Oura App can help you stay informed about your menstrual cycle. (Note that using hormonal birth control may suppress monthly temperature variation and/or increase your average temperature.)
In addition to providing temperature trend data, the Oura Ring and app can help individuals better understand their menstrual cycles by spotting how each cycle phase impacts their heart, lungs, and more. These changes typically show up as patterns in resting heart rate (RHR), heart rate variability (HRV), and respiratory rate.
While Oura Ring alone is not meant for fertility tracking, understanding where you are in your cycle can have major lifestyle benefits, as each phase is associated with different hormonal changes. Knowing how your body may feel or respond at certain times of the month is empowering for all people who menstruate — no matter your family planning needs.
RELATED: How to Align Your Movement With Your Menstrual Cycle
Statements from Natural Cycles & Oura Leadership
No matter what your personal family planning goals may be, leaders at both companies are excited to empower their members with more detailed knowledge about their bodies.
“We have been actively working on delivering a seamless measuring experience for our users and we were thrilled when we received FDA clearance to use the Oura Ring with our algorithm,” said Natural Cycles co-founder and CEO Dr. Elina Berglund Scherwitzl.
“We are proud to work alongside a company that is similarly committed to delivering advanced health tools to women at a time when it has never been more important,” Scherwitzl continues. “With the help of Oura data, Natural Cycles is powering the future of birth control.”
“Partnering with Natural Cycles is a natural fit given our research has shown that temperature data from the Oura Ring can detect important temperature changes throughout the menstrual cycle, including increases around the LH (luteinizing hormone) surge, which occurs just before ovulation, and decreases nearing menstruation,” adds Holly Shelton, Chief Product Officer at Oura. “The partnership between Natural Cycles and Oura shows the power of technology to enable women to better understand and take control of their fertility.”
RELATED: How the Co-Founder of Natural Cycles Balances Being a Busy Mom & CEO With Oura