You can start measuring the first day, or at your earliest convenience after you quit your hormonal contraception (birth control). Please read more about when to start after being on other contraceptive methods here.
It can take a while for your first ovulation to occur as ovulation is typically inhibited while using hormonal contraception. As a result, it may take some time for your cycle to become what’s normal for you. It is highly individual how long it can take for the first ovulation to occur; it can be from a few weeks to a few months.
With this in mind, measuring according to our guidelines will allow the algorithm to be able to detect when you have ovulated. Until then, you will be given only red days for NC° Birth Control and with each ovulatory cycle, you will get more and more green days. As an NC° Plan Pregnancy user, you will be given only brown days until ovulation is detected, after which you’ll begin to see non-fertile days presented in a light green color, and the fertile window is presented in a scale of red colors (you can read more about colors and symbols for NC° Plan Pregnancy here).
LH tests are optional and not a requirement for the algorithm, but some users want to know when they can start testing for the increase in LH which is usually found 24-48 hours before ovulation. If you're coming off of hormonal contraception, we recommend the following:
For NC° Birth Control users, we do not recommend using LH tests until your first ovulatory cycle has been confirmed by the app. When the app has gotten to know your cycle, it will recommend when to take an LH test.
If you are using NC° Plan Pregnancy, you can begin to take LH tests if and when the app suggests you to.
If you would like to read some more information about switching birth control methods, you can head over to our blog post here.