Women Warned about Booming Market in Period Tracker Apps

BBC

Tracking

The market is flourishing with apps which grant women an opportunity to keep in check their dates of their month menstrual cycle. Currently, 200m download are thought to have been of menstrual cycle tracking apps, throughout the world. However, one of the top UK medical royal college has notified that women should not completely and blindly depend on these apps as a form of contraception.

Promoters of privacy suggest that users should be cautious of what matter they might unintentionally be sharing when they download such apps. When one searches for apps which track one’s period one will see lot of options being prompted like some displaying charts and diagrams, while others illustrate floral patterns of lilac or pink tulips. Menstrual cycle tracking apps come second to apps which are based for motor running, in the category for health and fitness.

Amy Worsfold resides in the south-eastern part of London in Greenwich mentioned that she used multiple trackers for about three years. This opera singer said that when a woman is in a pre-menstrual phase, the levels of hormone secretions are elevated and affect the larynx in different ways could be unfavourable to the same person’s singing voice. She makes use of such apps just to avoid fixing auditions, important performances or premiers on pre-menstrual days if she could.

Ownership

She notes down and calculates her cycle with the help of her smartphone. The app also has feature which allows her to recognize connections with fluctuations in her emotions or mood, headaches and eating habits. She added that since she was able to make note of what was happening to her and how she distinctively responded to her cycle made her aware n could take ownership of the fact that could suck but also is completely necessary.

In some cases, women download apps to track their period in order to monitor their fertility. But Gynaecologists and Obstetricians from the Royal College have advised them not to use the apps as a way of contraception. So far, only one app in the market has solely assessed for efficiency for the same. Mostly they are not categorized as medical devices that would involve stern regulations.

Powerful tool

Clue is an app by Ida Tin, who is a Berlin based Danish entrepreneur. Her market share is of 10% in the UK. She said that all she wanted to do was develop a next generation of technology in the terms of family planning and she is certain that they will reach there, however they haven’t reached there yet. Many women have been recently showing a great amount of interest in Clue from Brazil and Mexico, probably due to the increasing threats of conceiving during an outbreak of zika.

Ida is fascinated in how anonymous matter from her app which is free can be used for a greater good. She has therefore teamed up with medical researchers who are established at Oxford University. Her business has been constructed on an accountable method by her.

She adds that her app is a very powerful tool, and that she cannot do what her users would want her to do until and unless she makes use of the data that they feed in. She is grateful and she is asking for a lot of faith in her, but many companies that likewise are in the same sort of work line, do not have any value or respect the trust they set.

Terms and conditions

Few apps that more clearly directed at conception have a proper value to advertisers and promoters. For instance, a woman who is planning for a baby will be a likely market for clothing, prams and other possible purchases. Sam Smith, who is privacy promoter at medConfidential said that it is necessary for a source to be present for people to trust which is independent and that can assure the safety of the app for individuals, not only for all medical applications, but for applications for conception in particular.

The terms and conditions which are provided but the app developers can be read; also legally people are required to do so. But every individual knows that nobody pays heed to that. Sam understands the deficiency of regulations or also authorized recommendations, as a failure of the market in this area.

As a result, he advises that in case the application is free of charge to download, one should ponder if they would have to be paying for it in result by providing them with their data that they feed in the app on their smartphone, and also consider where that would be going. This along with many other aspects calls for areas of improvement. Further improvement need to be made to gain accuracy. So far it’s all on trial and error, until the data can be examined by the developers.