Articles in this section

How NC° Perimenopause works

How NC° Perimenopause works

NC° Perimenopause is the Natural Cycles mode designed to help you track your journey through perimenopause and better understand the changes happening in your body.

  1. Discover Your Stage of Perimenopause

The NC° Menopause Algorithm is the first algorithm of its kind, designed to help you understand where you are in your perimenopause journey — early, mid, or late — offering guidance that makes sense of your symptoms and your stage.

  1. Turns Hormonal Shifts Into Actionable Insights

Unlike passive symptom trackers, NC° Perimenopause analyzes your unique patterns and biometric data to give science-backed guidance on what to expect and how to prepare.

  1. Empowers You to Navigate With Confidence

Whether it’s lifestyle changes, supplements, or starting a conversation about HRT with your doctor—NC° Perimenopause helps you feel informed, in control, and supported.

  1. Backed by Clinical Research and Leading Menopause Experts

Developed by Natural Cycles’ Geneva-based science team, using clinical trial data, peer-reviewed research, and input from world-leading menopause experts like Dr. Barbara Levy.

 

How can I make the most of my cycle insights? 

Tracking your symptoms is the key to understanding and managing your perimenopause journey. In NC° Perimenopause, logging your symptoms is the first step to unlocking powerful insights about your body.

Your trackers are split into three categories: symptoms, lifestyle, and emotions. This helps you connect the dots between how you feel and what’s going on in your life.

On your Today tab, you'll see a quick overview of your tracking for the week. The Insights tab allows you to unlock deeper insights:

  • Cycle Insights: By consistently tracking, you'll gain access to powerful Cycle Insights that reveal your perimenopause stage and key statistics about your body's rhythm. You can compare all of your cycles in one place to see how your body is changing over time.
  • Trackers Insights: This tab allows you to spot personal trends and uncover your unique patterns. Under the Symptoms deep dive section, you'll also find more details on each tracker to better understand why it's important to track, what it represents, and when you should consider talking to a doctor.

In your Insights tab, you’ll also find your Cycle Report, which includes an exportable PDF that provides a comprehensive overview of your cycle health for your last six cycles. This report is designed to facilitate productive conversations with your healthcare provider. It features essential cycle metrics, trend analysis, symptom patterns, and automatically generated flags highlighting potential irregularities.

You can access the PDF by clicking on “Preview Cycle Report PDF”, and you can share it by clicking on “Export PDF”.

 

 

Do I need to track my temperature while on NC° Perimenopause?

Yes, you should track your temperature while using NC° Perimenopause. It's a key part of getting the most out of the app.

Temperature tracking is essential for two reasons:

  • For Fertility and Birth Control: To get the most out of using the app for birth control, we recommend measuring at least five times per week. It's important to know that logging fewer temperatures will not affect the app's effectiveness. However, it may result in more Red Days, which can reduce your overall satisfaction with the app. Learn more here: What happens if I sometimes forget to measure?
  • For Perimenopause Insights: Even if you don't need birth control, temperature tracking is still very important. The detection of ovulation (or lack thereof) can be a telling sign of where you are in your perimenopause journey. It's also a great way to learn about your body and its unique changes throughout your cycle.

If you are currently on hormonal birth control and have consented for us to use your health data for research, your temperature data will also be used for research purposes. By contributing your data, you will help further the field of women’s health and perimenopause, which is currently very underresearched.

 

Which device should I use with NC° Perimenopause?

We recommend using NC° Perimenopause with one of our approved wearable devices for a convenient and seamless tracking experience. 

If you prefer to use a thermometer, you can easily switch to that mode once you have signed up. Simply go to the top menu in your app, then to My Device > Switch Device.

If you choose to use a thermometer, it's important that you use a basal thermometer, not a regular fever thermometer. A basal thermometer measures with a higher precision (two decimal places), which is crucial for our algorithm to accurately detect the small temperature shifts that indicate ovulation.

You can use a basal thermometer from any brand, or you can purchase one from our NC° Shop.

 

 

Who is NC° Perimenopause for?

NC° Perimenopause is for anyone experiencing perimenopause — from the first hormone-related changes to your cycle or symptoms, all the way until menopause, when your periods stop. You can also use it if you’re experiencing symptoms in postmenopause or in induced menopause (when menopause is brought on by medical interventions like surgery or medication). 

The changes you notice in perimenopause can be to your cycle or period, or other things like pain and symptoms that can be physical or cognitive. Some people experience dramatic changes, while others start to notice subtle shifts that only make sense when they look back later on. The process can last a few months or more than ten years. 

Everyone’s experience is different, and it can be hard to know where you are in this journey, whether it’s smooth sailing or bumpy and confusing. You can use NC° Perimenopause to track symptoms and lifestyle factors, find patterns that help you make more informed decisions, draw on analysis and insights powered by our first-of-its-kind NC° Menopause Algorithm, and save data that can help you and your doctor make a more personalized treatment plan.

Take our quiz: Find out if you might be in perimenopause

 

How does NC° Perimenopause support users experiencing cycle irregularities that can be expected in perimenopause?

In perimenopause, it’s normal for your periods to get shorter, longer, heavier, lighter, closer together, or farther apart — or all of the above! The Natural Cycles algorithms are designed to handle the expected unpredictability of changing cycles during this shift, including detecting changes to ovulation trends and more frequent anovulation (cycles with no ovulation), so the app works with both regular and irregular cycles. 

The app features a Cycle Insights tool that helps you better understand your menstrual cycle and get recommendations based on your unique cycle. This information can support conversations with your healthcare team, empowering you to make informed decisions about your health. For more information, read this article: Why was my cycle flagged as atypical or irregular?

 

Can I use NC° Perimenopause alongside hormone replacement therapy (HRT)?

Yes, you can use NC° Perimenopause alongside hormone therapy. 

We understand that menopausal hormone therapy (MHT), also known as hormone replacement therapy (HRT), can be an important part of managing the symptoms of perimenopause. So we created NC° Perimenopause to work alongside hormone therapy as applicable — it can even be a useful tool to gauge the effectiveness of your hormone therapy and record data that can help you and your doctor make more informed decisions about your overall treatment plan. 

You can read more about hormone therapy in perimenopause in this article: Perimenopause: Signs, symptoms & how to manage

Note: if you are on hormone replacement therapy (HRT), you cannot use Natural Cycles as birth control and will therefore not get a daily fertility status. This is because our algorithm uses your temperature to identify your fertility status, and there is currently not enough scientific research on how HRT affects these temperature patterns. The algorithm will still, however, try to predict and confirm ovulation if there is enough data to support this. 

If you've consented to your data being used for research about women's reproductive health, your temperature data will help our team further the field of women's health. By contributing, you will be playing a key role in advancing perimenopause and HRT research.

 

Can I use NC° Perimenopause with hormonal or non-hormonal birth control?

Yes, NC° Perimenopause will be accessible to everyone regardless of their birth control needs. 

This is the first time that the Natural Cycles app, known for being the first and only FDA-cleared and CE marked digital birth control, is available to users who are using hormonal birth control. 

This mode is also available to those using different forms of non-hormonal birth control. We designed NC° Perimenopause to be inclusive because we know that perimenopause can affect you regardless of your choice of birth control.

 

If I am perimenopausal and want to use Natural Cycles for birth control, which mode should I choose?

If you are perimenopausal and want to use Natural Cycles as your birth control method, we recommend choosing the NC° Perimenopause mode. In this mode, you'll get a daily fertility status to help you prevent pregnancy, along with trackers, insights, and daily check-ins that allow you to keep track of your perimenopausal symptoms. 

Please note: you will not be able to use NC° Perimenopause as your birth control method if you’ve selected that you are currently on hormonal birth control or on hormone replacement therapy. 

 

 

How to switch to NC° Perimenopause

You can switch to NC° Perimenopause anytime by navigating to the app’s top menu > Settings > Mode > NC° Perimenopause. 

The NC° Perimenopause mode offers two distinct experiences, and the one you receive depends on your birth control needs and whether you are using hormones:

Version Who It's For Key Features
NC° Perimenopause without birth control Users who are currently on hormonal birth control or HRT, or who do not need to use NC° as their birth control method.  Symptom tracking and guidance, actionable insights, and perimenopause stage calculation
NC° Perimenopause with birth control Users wanting to use NC° for birth control who are not on hormonal birth control or Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). Same features as above + provides a daily fertility status (Red or Green Days) and can be used for birth control.

Note: If you are an existing user, switching to NC° Perimenopause will align your experience with the NC° Birth Control mode, meaning you will continue to see your daily Red and Green Days.

NC° Perimenopause currently does not support planning a pregnancy.

 

Can I switch between the different versions of NC° Perimenopause (with and without birth control)?

As we recently launched this mode, it is not currently possible to switch directly between the two versions of NC° Perimenopause (e.g., from the HRT version to the Birth Control version).

  • If your circumstances change (e.g., you start or stop HRT), we recommend you stick with the mode you are currently using for the time being. We are working to offer internal switching in a future update.
  • If you have just started logging data and need to switch versions, our Customer Care team can help. However, this requires a full account reset, which will permanently delete all data you have logged so far. Please confirm you understand and agree to this permanent data loss when contacting our team.

 

 

Disclaimer: NC° Perimenopause is here to support you with wellness insights and information. It’s not a diagnosis — we always recommend consulting with your own doctor for medical advice.

Related articles