8 ms·
What are menstruation apps useful for? Is it a part of the "track everything about your health" trend?
by H8crilA 7y ago
What are menstruation apps useful for? Is it a part of the "track everything about your health" trend?
- svachalek 7y agoAmong other things, trying to increase/decrease chances of pregnancy.
- mturmon 7y agoMany uses. Why do people check the weather before deciding whether to pack an umbrella?
- diegoperini 7y agoWhether you are late?
- 1123581321 7y agoIt really helps with conception/contraception. It also alerts you to changes in your health. Typically you’re tracking temperature, mucus consistency, cervix properties and menstruation. The way it converges into one stat (fertility window) and also potentially assists with a variety of other health areas is very cool. 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.
- johnny313 7y agoThere are a lot of reasons, including as an indicator of overall health. > “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-tracking-apps/ https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/g26787041/best-period...
- hunterjumper06 7y agoGynecologists ask for your period history including how heavy it is. It’s helpful for them to know when you plan on starting or switch birth control methods. They always ask for the last date/length of your period. I’m lucky if I remembered what I had for lunch much less when I last needed a tampon.
- saagarjha 7y agoThey’re often used for predicting your next cycle or for fertility planning. Just to satisfy my curiosity, are you female?
- dabbledash 7y agoMost people using menstrual trackers will be trying to get pregnant, which is potentially pretty valuable info for advertisers. 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.
- bluntfang 7y ago>Most people using menstrual trackers will be trying to get pregnant, which is potentially pretty valuable info for advertisers New and expecting parents might be the most valuable demographic, period.
- HarryHirsch 7y agoIn America, where childbirth can easily come with a five-figure price tag, and where half of the people don't have 500 dollars to their name?
- CompanionCuuube 7y agoBut look at all these new credit card offers available!
- mtnGoat 7y agothis is a strange cross roads. isn't it? 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.
- lotsofpulp 7y agoUpper end of 5 figures is somewhere more than $50,000. Unless you went to an out of network hospital, and the kid ended up in the NICU, I doubt the total would be that high.
- AWildC182 7y agoIf there was EVER any doubt about the demographics of HN... Let this be a lesson to everyone that we work and live in a massive bubble.
- cocoa19 7y agoWhy don't you explain him rather than demonizing him in front of all HN audience. Treat others as you'd like to be treated.
- AWildC182 7y agoPlenty of other people already explained. I decided to leverage this as a teaching moment.
- H8crilA 7y agoThank you for the kind lesson. I genuinely didn't know.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dabbledash 7y agoI agree that ignorance of other peoples’ experiences isn’t a blameworthy thing. But it does demonstrate one reason diversity is important. A smart person acting in good faith can miss things that are completely obvious to people with different life experiences. We all only know what it’s like to be us.
- anigbrowl 7y agoIt's such a basic question that it would be better to do an internet search or read the wikipedia article on the topic. You might as well ask why heart attacks are a big deal.
- H8crilA 7y agoI might as well ask what are heart attack apps useful for. I wouldn't know what are heart attacks apps for.
- 80mph 7y agoIf you have an autoimmune disease, it helps greatly to know when your estrogen and progesterone levels are highest as they both impact the immune system.
- logfromblammo 7y agoBefore the app, there was the red felt-tipped pen kept next to the paper calendar. 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.
- mtnGoat 7y agook the eating liver part caught me... i don't know that part. fill me in?
- saagarjha 7y agoIron?
- bsder 7y agoProtein, iron, and B-complex vitamins. All extremely useful to replenish lost blood.
- flukus 7y agoYou only lose ~80ml of blood. When you donate to the blood bank your giving ~500ml and I've never heard of anyone recommending liver, other than not having an empty stomach there's no special dietary changes necessary. Am I missing something?
- mtrower 7y agoI can't speak directly to your given values, and am unfortunately in a poor position to research them. However, different women have different experiences. Some suffer from anemia and/or iron deficiency during their cycle. Perhaps this information will be useful?
- 7y ago
- eb0la 7y agoIn the old world (tm) women used to have a diary/agenda/calendar and tracked it there. The trend is not "track everything": if you have an idea that makes women carry less stuff with them, I assure you there is a market. their bags. 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).
- cameronbrown 7y agoAdvertisers can sure be creepy can't they. 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).
- jakear 7y agoMight be missing something here, but why would women who might be pregnant be a particularly valuable audience for porn sites, tinder, etc?
- mtrower 7y agoNot the women - their partners.
- 7y ago
- Broken_Hippo 7y agoBecause lots of weird shit happens to women. 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.
- RichardCA 7y agoA lot of dudes keep track of their girlfriend's periods, because every month there is one "safe" weekend where you can have unprotected sex and get away with it. 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-sleazy-shameles-5120556 https://gizmodo.com/iamaman-period-tracking-iphone-app-for-s... https://jezebel.com/another-innovative-menstrual-tracker-app-5513504 https://jezebel.com/another-innovative-menstrual-tracker-app...
- H8crilA 7y ago> and some for skeezy bachelors who want to track multiple women Isn't this crazy - the amount of work people would put in just to have occasional unprotected sex. People are animals.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoIt's not crazy. Sex is one of the most fundamental and powerful desires we have. What's actually crazy, in a mostly positive way, is how much control we've managed to achieve over it at individual and social level.
- marvin 7y ago> People are animals Well, yes, we're really just pretending otherwise. Also agree with TeMPOralL's sentiment :)
- bakuninsbart 7y agoWowowow, isn't it like 10 days that are safe? I might be in very risky territory here.
- tremon 7y agoWithin the span of ten days, you can be sure there is at least one weekend.
- novia 7y agoPrediction. Menstruation apps are useful for prediction. Don't want to bleed all over the office furniture at work? It might be useful to have an idea of when you will start bleeding.
- froindt 7y agoBecause of the monthly hormone cycle, women can have a difficult time getting taken seriously at the doctor. "Your hormone levels are shifting, that's probably why you're experiencing _symptom_". 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.
- H8crilA 7y agoExcuse me but what kind of an idiot doctor doesn't know what menstruation is or what it can potentially cause? And you really need to show him an app for that instead of just saying it happens every period? I'd rather change a doctor to someone who didn't sleep through their medical school...
- BigJ1211 7y agoThis unfortunately seems to be rather common (at least in the US), John Oliver did an episode on it a short while ago. It has a lot to do with the history of the medical field as opposed to modern Mal-intent. For example a lot of testing was done on men and then that data was taken and also used for women. If you search for "John Oliver medical bias" you'll find the video.
- astura 7y agoIf a woman is trying to conceive it could be helpful to predict her fertility window using menstrual cycle tracking. Same with if she were trying NOT to conceive (so-called "natural family planning") 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.
- wodenokoto 7y agoCycles aren't regular, so just adding an event every 27th day in your calendar, won't be of much use to a lot of women. 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.
- dirtyid 7y agoAs a dude, I use it to track my mood / fatigue for lifting which worked OK.