5 Facts about our founder: Dr. Elina Berglund

1. She wanted to be a scientist since she was a little girl 

Elina grew up in Malmö in the south of Sweden. Her passion for physics was sparked when she was just five years old after talking with her father about the solar system. This hunger for knowledge only grew and Elina went on to study physics at university before getting her doctorate in elementary particle physics from The University of Geneva. 

This passion for science is shared by her husband Raoul, who also gained his PhD in physics. The pair met while studying in the university library during an exchange year in the United States.

2. She worked at CERN before becoming an entrepreneur 

During her doctoral studies, Elina worked at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (known as CERN). She continued pursuing research at CERN after her PhD and was then part of the Nobel Prize-winning team who discovered the elusive Higgs Boson particle. During this time she met many bright minds who she’d go on to work with at Natural Cycles.

During this time, Elina and Raoul got married. Although happy with her chosen method of birth control: the implant, the pair wanted to start a family in a couple of years' time. Elina quickly realized there weren’t many options available to her to use that were non-hormonal and non-invasive. She started investigating fertility awareness methods and learned about the link between basal body temperature and the menstrual cycle.

3. She taught herself to code an app

After the Higgs Boson discovery, Elina chose to leave CERN to pursue a new venture. Armed with the power to analyze and understand big data and the newfound knowledge of her own biology, she had a plan to design a different kind of birth control.

Shut up in their apartment in Zurich, Elina spent a whole year working on the algorithm, as well as coding and developing the website and the app that would become Natural Cycles. 

4. She was the very first Cycler

In 2013 Natural Cycles was born. The pair returned to Elina’s homeland of Sweden to launch the app. Elina was the very first user, having used her own data to test and build the algorithm. 

It wasn’t long though before her friends wanted in on this new hormone-free way to prevent pregnancy. Soon it was getting bigger than just a few friends logging their temperatures. The first effectiveness study covered data from more than 4,000 women. 

Ten years later Elina and many of her colleagues are still using Natural Cycles. Although we think you’ll agree that the app looks pretty different a decade later, the science behind this technology is just as effective.

5. She’s planned two babies with Natural Cycles 

Elina always set out to create a birth control app that would make it easy for her to get pregnant when the time was right. Since initially using the method to prevent pregnancy, she’s planned two successful pregnancies with Natural Cycles. 

Unfortunately, like many other women Elina also experienced pregnancy loss. This lived experience helped create an app that’s empathetic to those who also experience miscarriage. One of the less talked about features of Natural Cycles is NC° Recovery, designed to guide Cyclers through this difficult point of their fertility journey.

At Natural Cycles our mission has always been to empower women with the knowledge they need to take charge of their health. While we all have different fertility journeys, we want you to be informed about your reproductive health along the way however you choose to use Natural Cycles. 

Haven’t signed up yet?

If you’re interested in going hormone-free, but haven’t yet made the switch, why not take our quiz and find out if this method could work for you? Natural Cycles is 93% effective with typical use and 98% effective with perfect use. Finally, a birth control method women want to use that was created by a woman.