First FDA-cleared birth control app, Natural Cycles partners with Oura Ring, the leading health tracking smart ring to empower women to take control of their pregnancy. This partnership will allow Natural Cycles (NC°) to use the body temperature data captured by Oura Ring to determine fertility.
Both Natural Cycles and Oura Ring offer innovative and quality healthcare solutions to their customers. This partnership will allow them to address issues related to women’s health and fertility, which are comparatively less addressed than they could be. With the Global Women’s Health Market expected to grow at 4.8% CAGR and reach $58.2 Billion in 2030, the partnership has good revenue potential.
Let’s know more about the partnership and its upcoming contribution to the female health segment.
Natural Cycles partners with Oura Ring: How will their technology help women?
There are several birth control apps available in the market. All of them use period dates as criteria to predict ovulation and fertility, which isn’t very accurate. The menstrual cycle causes hormonal changes that raise body temperature after ovulation and temperature drops at the onset of menstruation. Natural Cycles uses these temperature changes alongside period dates to give more accurate insights.
By using Oura Ring alongside the Natural Cycles app, women will get
- A tailor-made experience to learn more about their bodies.
- Daily fertility status every morning
- A-Z health data in a single platform—from heart rate data, sleep quality, and activity tracking to ovulation and PMS. It will allow women to plan or prevent pregnancy without hormone pills.
The temperature trend data collected by Oura Ring throughout the night will automatically sync to Natural Cycles app to provide fertility status every morning. For this, the users will have to wear the Oura Ring to bed. The fertility insights will help users plan or prevent pregnancy effortlessly.
Previously, Natural Cycles could obtain temperature data only by manual temperature input by users every morning. The data and insights would vary if the users missed noting the temperature or if the body temperature varied due to stress, alcohol consumption, irregular sleep or other health issues. With Oura tracking other metrics like heart rate, sleeping patterns, etc., Natural Cycles will receive better insights to predict fertility.
“The partnership between Natural Cycles and Oura shows the power of technology to enable women to better understand and take control of their fertility.”
– Holly Shelton, Senior Vice President of Consumer Product at Oura
About Oura Ring
Oura is a Finland-based health-tech startup founded in 2013 by Kari Kivela, Markku Koskela, and Petteri Lahtela. The startup manufactures a smart ring, Oura Ring, that allows users to track and achieve their health goals while living a balanced life.
Oura Ring monitors sleep, activity, temperature, heart rate, blood oxygen levels, stress, and more to deliver personalised health insights and daily guidance for long-term improvement.
About Natural Cycles
Natural Cycles is a birth control app founded in 2013 by Physicists Dr Elina Berglund and Dr Raoul Scherwitzl. It is the first birth control app to receive FDA clearance and is certified to be used as a contraceptive in Europe, Australia, and Singapore. In 2021, Natural Cycles also received regulatory clearance to integrate with Oura Ring and other third-party wearables.
Natural Cycles birth control is proven to be 93% effective with typical use and 98% effective with perfect use.
Earlier in 2018, a hospital filed a complaint that 37 of 668 women who sought abortions during the period of September 2017 to December 2017 used Natural Cycles as their digital contraceptive. Natural Cycles also faced a bash from UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for Ads describing the app to be highly accurate.
Natural Cycles took the defensive edge and explained that the numbers were on par with the efficacy mentioned. It also took down the Ads. However, Natural Cycles app hasn’t undergone clinical trials to validate its efficiency. The 93% effectiveness is based on a study conducted amongst 28000 (approx) users.
While no contraception is 100% effective, validating its efficacy with clinical trials is essential for Natural Cycles to gain user trust. Also, the complaints go back to 2018. The app has been improved over the years to provide quality insights. And partnering with Oura Ring will enable Natural Cycles to gain better insights to predict fertility.
