What are menstruation apps useful for? Is it a part of the "track everything about your health" trend?
> “Changes to your cycle, or abnormalities—like irregular or heavy bleeding, or severe pain—can all signal issues that benefit from medical evaluation,” says Rashmi Kudesia, MD, reproductive endocrinologist and clinical assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Houston Methodist. “If something suddenly changes with your cycle, or your period is late, you may not realize it right away it if you’re not keeping track.”
> If you do keep track, it will be easier to head to your gynecologist if funky stuff starts happening—and easier for them to find out what's going on. Dr. Kudesia also mentions tracking your cycle can be helpful in pinpointing your fertility window and making small lifestyle changes around the time of your period (scheduling extra downtime to combat your low energy, or being mindful of your eating habits when your cravings are in full swing). [0]
[0] https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/g26787041/best-period...
Data from those apps is really valuable from a marketing perspective.
The case with least value is selling it to P&G or whoever just to track how much market share do they have.
If you put a tracker on it (facebook, for example) you can build a custom audience on top of it and promote/sell whatever you want related to reproductive healt and/or sexuality. Not just women.
You could be a little evil and sell women tampons before they have menstruation.
You could be evil and build a custom Facebook audience with users from your app and make money selling them stuff using a retargeting bid (since they are part of your audience).
Or you could be very evit and target partners of women whe ceased to use your app for more than, say, 3-4 months and show ads for DNA paternity tests (which you don't sell, but someone else does and gives a referral fee for it).
Or you could have very, very evil and build an audience around partners of women who might be pregnant, capture the clicks to build another audience (this time yours) and sell porn, tinder, dating/e-whoring, and divorce advice for a fee. Will work because this is a retargeting list (you already marked them as your customers, so bidding will be low for the ads).
Maybe FB audiences should be made public, or you're told if you're in one. It seems a lot more invasive than other Ads software I've looked into (from the perspective of what you could do).
Going beyond that, we use Kindara and see a lot of women turning it into a generic key-value habit/mood/reminder tracker with emojis, etc. So it has value beyond just health.
One has to know when to carry additional supplies beyond the gifter spare and the emergency personal reserve tampons. And when to wear different underwear. And when not to schedule dates. And when to buy chocolate. And when pregnancy is more likely. And when pregnancy is less likely. And when to eat liver. And when to buy analgesics. And when to make travel plans and hotel reservations, and when to not go anywhere for any reason.
All extremely useful to replenish lost blood.
Am I missing something?
That's an average.
Almost all the women I have known occasionally complain about a "heavy month" every now and then. That can be either excessive bleeding in terms of volume lost over a normal time or an excessive time length of bleeding.
And, a 90lb female losing even 200ml of blood is going to feel effects far more than a 250lb male losing 500ml.
Also, for people with irregular cycles, knowing when you (probably) ovulated can help you predict when you’ll start bleeding.
Compared to most health tracking, tracking your menstrual cycle gives you clearly actionable info.
New and expecting parents might be the most valuable demographic, period.
my wife gave birth 18 months ago, we have good insurance and a lot of family that gave us a lot of stuff we needed as gifts. without that we would easily be on the very upper end of the 5 figures by now.
i also exclusively pumped for a year, which cost a few thousand dollars. the pumps alone were $1200. then replacement parts, accessories, random necessities.. can't even count the time and the calorie investment involved (i was eating upwards of 1000 extra calories a day to prevent weight loss).
throw in gear and clothing and...going past $50k for the first 18 months doesn't seem so unrealistic?
Also, one pump is required to be provided by the health insurance company by law, and as now, a new pump costs a a few hundred dollars. This is the most popular one:
http://www.medelabreastfeedingus.com/products/573/pump-in-st...
A crib/car seat/rocking chair/stroller can be had for $1k total if you stick to mid level stuff, maybe a few thousand if you go super fancy. Food and clothes might be another few thousand.
I wouldn’t count one’s time cost to be of importance to the conversation either, as it’s universal. If we’re comparing how much money came out of parents’ pockets with a baby versus not having baby, I would say at most $10k for most people, I would budget for $15k though (and lost wages due to time off if you don’t have paid parental leave).
based on your math and assumptions i really wonder if you have had a child in the US recently.
These apps can get quite good at predicting irregular cycles.
Some apps will give users warnings of the type "PMS starts tomorrow, expect moodswings", or "expect extreme tiredness" and for people who are heavily affected by their period, this can be a big help in controlling their feelings or just understand their well-being.
If you can show it happens throughout the month, and you have specific data relating whatever symptoms you're experiencing with your cycle, you're a lot more likely to actually get treated for the aliment.
Pregnant or not? Maybe your hormones aren't right - one of the signs is usually change in monthly cycle. Whenever you have to go to the doctor for pap smears and so on, the doctor asks about it. For some folks, their weight determines their cycle length - too much or too little fat can change fertility. Perhaps you get really, really bad PMS (PMDD) and need to take anti-depressants around 2 weeks before the beginning of your cycle.
And more, I'm guessing. I just can't think of another example right now, but in any case, monthly cycles are a big indicator of health issues and can be a great help with life issues as well.
This is sometimes called the "Rhythm Method" or "Fertility Awareness" and a lot of men have self-interested reasons for wanting to know this about a woman.
There is a history of apps optimized for this purpose. Some wholesome for married couples to use, and some for skeezy bachelors who want to track multiple women.
https://gizmodo.com/iamaman-period-tracking-iphone-app-for-s...
https://jezebel.com/another-innovative-menstrual-tracker-app...
Isn't this crazy - the amount of work people would put in just to have occasional unprotected sex. People are animals.
Well, yes, we're really just pretending otherwise. Also agree with TeMPOralL's sentiment :)
Heart attacks are just point-events on the other hand, they happen and that's that. So knowing full well what a menstruation app is useful for one would still not understand what a similar app for heart attacks could possibly even mean. Calculate your heart attack window? That would be something new indeed, so you are right not to see the point. Just as there is no point in using heart attacks to understand the menstruation cycle.
Doctors ask you if you have a regular cycle, the only way to know that is to track your cycle.
If you're having some sort of issue with your reproductive organs you may track your cycle for a few months to try to better pin down the issue.