Welcome to this week’s edition of Path to Parenthood. We’re really glad you’re here!
Walk through the wellness aisle, scroll through your feeds, or talk to anyone who has tried to conceive in the last five years, and you will run into the phrase "balance your hormones." It is everywhere. The underlying premise that paying attention to your hormones matters is real. Most of the marketing built on top is not.
We wanted to spend this week's edition on the part of the conversation that does hold up. The first feature makes the case for the menstrual cycle as a vital sign across the reproductive lifespan, drawing on ACOG, three decades of cardiovascular research, and an honest line between the evidence and the claims. The second is the practical companion: a field guide to what's worth tracking, what to ignore, and how to bring your data into the conversations that matter. No pressure to optimize everything. Just support, perspective, and space to breathe.
Let’s get into it.
In this Issue We'll Cover...
The Fifth Vital Sign
There is something doctors have been quietly trying to tell their patients for decades: the menstrual cycle is not just a fertility signal. It is a vital sign. ACOG and the American Academy of Pediatrics formally endorsed it as one in 2006, alongside heart rate, blood pressure, and respiratory rate. A 700,000-woman UK cohort study found that women with abnormal cycle patterns had measurably higher cardiovascular and metabolic risk later in life. Multiple studies link smoking, BMI, and other lifestyle factors to menopause timing. Meanwhile, the wellness industry has built a parallel narrative on top of all this that wildly oversells what "balancing your hormones" actually means.
👉 Read: The Fifth Vital Sign
A Collection of Reading Sources to Dig Deeper
A short reading list for going further on the themes above: the actual ACOG position, the largest study to date on the lifespan thesis, a clear-eyed wellness-industry counterweight, and a fresh institutional skepticism most fertility-adjacent media hasn’t covered.
Menstruation in Girls and Adolescents: Using the Menstrual Cycle as a Vital Sign (ACOG). The actual committee opinion the first feature is built on, in ACOG’s own words. Short, official, and worth reading once if you want to see the medical case without anyone interpreting it for you.
9 Myths About the “Stress Hormone” Cortisol (TIME, 2026). A clear-eyed dismantling of the cortisol-balancing supplement industry and the “reset” content that has filled the internet. The wellness-culture counterweight to the science the features cover.
SOGC Position Statement on the Natural Cycles App as a Method of Contraception (Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, July 2024). The formal Canadian medical position on the most-marketed cycle app. Worth knowing about if you have used Natural Cycles or are considering it. Notes that 7 of 12 published studies on the app had funding ties to the company.
Cycle as Data: A Field Guide to What’s Worth Tracking
What does it actually mean when your cycle-tracking app shows you a confident prediction about your next period or your fertile window? Less than you would think. The standard apps are excellent at storing data and surfacing patterns over time. They are weaker at predicting any single day. The same goes for basal body temperature (real but unreliable for most people), wearable temperature sensors (better at trends than at days), and Natural Cycles (the only FDA-cleared contraceptive app, and the one with the most complicated evidence base behind it). In contrast, clinical-grade devices like OTO Fertility offer a look into what these tools don't measure: longitudinal autonomic, cardiac, and CNS data captured at medical-grade precision and delivered to your doctor, rather than next-period predictions to your phone.
If you enjoyed this issue of Path to Parenthood, be sure to share with anyone you know who is currently on a TTC journey ❤
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