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ZDNET's key takeaways
- Oura launched features for pregnant and perimenopausal users on Tuesday.
- The science-backed features provide further context during periods of drastic biological change.
- The features are personalized, and the brand stresses data protection and privacy.
Pregnant and perimenopausal women are getting more ways to track and understand their health, thanks to several new features Oura announced on Tuesday.
The smart ring brand launched a redesigned Pregnancy Insights experience on the app alongside Perimenopause Check-In, available within the Cycle Insights tab.
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The new features provide clarity and further context during two periods of drastic biological change in a person's body and illuminate the normalities and abnormalities of each.
Within the redesigned Pregnancy Insights tab, Oura adds several features to understand each pregnancy stage. These include:
- Gestational Age, which tracks the daily age of the fetus and provides weekly insights on what pregnant people can expect
- A trend view for following biometric fluctuations cast against population data for gut-checking the normal and abnormal biological changes women experience during pregnancy
- Deep trend analysis that monitors vitals on a personal, individual level
- "Keeping Track" symptom tagging according to the baby's gestational age (and based on scientific literature)
- An expanded library of 35 pregnancy-specific tags, like food aversions, pelvic pain, nausea, and more
- Contextual insights that incorporate pregnancy data into Oura's Readiness, Sleep, Rest Mode, and Recovery mode
- Pregnancy Aware Advisor and Cycle Insights, for asking Oura's AI Advisor gestational-specific questions and tracking reproductive history.
"From pregnancy to perimenopause, women undergo profound physiological changes that have too often been dismissed or misunderstood," Oura's chief product officer, Holly Shelton, said in the press release. Women's health is a seemingly key focus for Oura.
Earlier this February, Oura launched a study with Scripps that assessed bio-behaviorial changes during pregnancy. It aimed to further study conditions like postpartum depression and warning signs of complications, like miscarriage or pre-term labor. Oura says that the study will inform future developments of its pregnancy experience.
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Oura developed the latest Pregnancy Insights redesign by using aggregate and de-identified member data from over 10,000 pregnancies. Within the press release announcing the new women's health features, the brand stressed its commitment to privacy and data security and highlighted its technical and organizational safeguards for protecting data.
In a post-Roe v. Wade world, where menstrual and fertility data can be surveilled, handed over to government bodies to penalize those seeking abortions, digitally tracking a menstrual cycle or pregnancy could pose a major risk, especially to those in states where abortion is illegal.
"Oura believes that no person should be targeted based on their health data, and will oppose any request to provide legal authorities with access to private user health data if it will be used for individual surveillance or prosecution purposes in violation of our users' privacy," an Oura spokesperson writes in an email to ZDNET.
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"Members maintain full control over their data rights, with transparent privacy settings and the ability to opt in or out of features at any time," Oura said.
On the menopause front, Oura's Perimenopause Check-In aims to monitor and address conditions associated with menopause.
Several features within Perimenopause Check-In gather data that members can eventually take to a provider for professional counsel and care.
A Menopause Rating Scale survey assesses and quantifies user-reported symptom severity to generate a menopause specific score. Oura calls this the "impact on quality of life score," that is, how drastically perimenopause is affecting their general wellness. This data and score could then be taken to a doctor.
A Provider-Ready PDF Report includes biometric insights, scoring trends, and menstrual cycle data packaged in a downloadable report for easy sharing. Lastly, Oura created partnerships with four women's healthcare providers: Evernow, Maven, Midi Health, and Progyny. From a brief glance at each care provider's website, these women-centered providers offer hormone therapy, menopause management tools, and additional insights and support.
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Perimenopause Check-In and its partnering women's healthcare providers highlight one way Oura is going beyond simply gathering a user's data.
The smart ring brand is using the aggregated data it collects to connect users with professional help and guidance. This is a strategic move, not only because it's leveraging its technology to address health conditions that its smart ring alone cannot, but also because with every partnership, it's making an argument for further implementation of wearable tech within the healthcare realm.
This mission is one that many tech brands are evolving towards. For example, Samsung recently acquired digital health brand Xealth. The platform connects over 500 hospitals across the country with 70 digital health centers. The idea behind the acquisition, Samsung wrote in its press release, is to not only monitor a person's vitals while they're at the doctor's office, but also do so continuously through a wearable.
This disconnected record-keeping can lead to "missed insights and delayed care," Samsung said. The acquisition shows that big and small tech brands are betting big on wearable tech's growing role in healthcare.
Pregnancy Insights roll out on Android and iOS starting on Tuesday, and Perimenopause Check-In rolls out on Wednesday.
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