"Fitbit for your period": the rise of fertility tracking
March 23, 2016 7:12 AM   Subscribe

 
Can tech companies use data to change the world of women’s reproductive health?

Yes?

I believe my wife would have used these apps when we were trying for our first child. But as a man I would have to ask her.
posted by My Dad at 7:24 AM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


As a standard-issue non-man-type thing with breaky non-man-type parts, the answer to that question for me is a definite YES. The potential of being able to show my doctor actual data is reassuring, though I haven't found the app that makes that part easy.
posted by zennie at 7:25 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Can't decide if Uberus or Youterus is better.
posted by Behemoth at 7:29 AM on March 23, 2016 [40 favorites]


I find this concept extremely grating. We already have safe, effective birth control - we need more of that, not "apps" that place additional time and energy burdens on women!
posted by yarly at 7:29 AM on March 23, 2016 [9 favorites]


Can tech companies use data to change the world of women’s reproductive health?

The real question is, why is this like the leventy-seventh application of this technology to come along, and why are most attempts so far so very poor? Of course this would be phenomenally useful. The article does a pretty good job of bringing up the systemic biases and lack of both behavioral and scientific research that would inform a successful product.
posted by Miko at 7:29 AM on March 23, 2016 [7 favorites]


And another thing: women who wanted to use fertility awareness to get pregnant could already do so effectively using simple measures and books like Taking Charge of Your Fertility. Claiming that an app (overwhelmingly male-designed and marketed, for sure) is going to "revolutionize" something that women were already doing on their own sounds an awful lot like mansplaining.
posted by yarly at 7:31 AM on March 23, 2016 [41 favorites]


Hell, I'm not planning on children, and the feature that was missing most from my UP24 was a period tracker. If I'm going to be tracking my exercise, my mood, my sleep, and my diet, shouldn't I be also tracking the monthly event that affects all of those things? And it would be so simple to just offer an integration option!

I've been thinking of switching to the bellabeat leaf just because of that, but I'd lose a lot of the practicality with it.
posted by dinty_moore at 7:31 AM on March 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


Here's the thing: women have already been doing this. During my brief flirtation with fertility tracking, I found the tracking tools on the website for Taking Charge of Your Fertility and the super old school Fertility Friend infinity times better than any of these slickly designed Fitbit-for-your-uterus products. They were fugly, yes, but useful, reliable, readable, and with a built-in knowledgeable user base.

There have been communities of women doing this for quite some time, without selling incredibly sensitive user data to third parties.
posted by nerdfish at 7:31 AM on March 23, 2016 [33 favorites]


In those early days, they were calling their company “Moonlyght,” a name that Bicknell now cites as further evidence of their ineptitude. (“Moonlyght! How were you supposed to Google that?”)
THANK you.

Unfortunately, the writer chose to physically describe only two people in the story, and I will give you one guess whether one of them was the man with a leading role.
posted by Etrigan at 7:32 AM on March 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


I have no intention of having children but I have always had super erratic periods since starting menstruation, but I have found that MeFi-recommended Clue app has been super helpful for me to track my cycles. I've tried doing it old school with a calendar and a pen, but that hasn't worked. But entering data on a device I use anyway? Way easier for me to maintain.
posted by Kitteh at 7:33 AM on March 23, 2016 [27 favorites]


Silicon Valley now mansplains basic female physiology!
posted by Dashy at 7:38 AM on March 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


What Kitteh said. It was one of the first apps I got when I finally could afford entry into smartphoneland. This is not about children for me... it's about basic health.
posted by zennie at 7:39 AM on March 23, 2016 [9 favorites]


And another thing: women who wanted to use fertility awareness to get pregnant could already do so effectively using simple measures and books like Taking Charge of Your Fertility.

Have you ever done it? It is an enormous pain. Doing it accurately means daily thermometer readings and charting cervical mucus and perfect recordkeeping. If there were a way to use biometric data gathered through a FitBit like device, that would be great. I think it's really telling that when these tools started to be developed, the money was in putting them behind diet and fitness, mindfulness, diabetes tracking, etc., instead of creating practical tools that work and that women would find helpful whether or not they are trying to conceive. Yes, of course, you can do this the old-fashioned way, but you can also count calories and take your heart rate the old-fashioned way, too. It makes eminent sense to use biometric technology for purposes that serve women's health.

Interestingly, Taking Charge of Your Fertility already has web tools and an app.
posted by Miko at 7:46 AM on March 23, 2016 [17 favorites]


I find this concept extremely grating. We already have safe, effective birth control - we need more of that, not "apps" that place additional time and energy burdens on women!

And another thing: women who wanted to use fertility awareness to get pregnant could already do so effectively using simple measures and books like Taking Charge of Your Fertility.


These two comments seem crazy contradictory, and rooted in a place of privilege inhabited by the type of person for whom our "safe effective birth control" works and is easily available. Or even the type of person who is only concerned with "birth control" and doesn't care about how some women want to understand their fertility/bodily cycles for any number of other reasons.

What could possibly be wrong with just appifying the TCoYF method (besides the privacy concerns already mentioned)? What could be wrong with giving women another option for tracking and understanding the weird shit that goes on in their bodies if they want it?

I'm not saying that any one particular implementation is going to be perfect (or even necessarily any good), but surely more technology giving women more knowledge and control over their bodies is a trend in a positive direction.
posted by sparklemotion at 7:50 AM on March 23, 2016 [37 favorites]


> Doing it accurately means daily thermometer readings and charting cervical mucus and perfect recordkeeping.

If you're my parents, it also means telling your adult child stories they'll wish you'd kept to yourself about your dad being greeted at the front door after work by your mom urgently waving a thermometer in the air.
posted by The Card Cheat at 7:50 AM on March 23, 2016 [11 favorites]


[Person] confessed that she could not wait to get her Looncup, a Bluetooth-enabled menstrual cup, which measures and analyses the blood that it collects.

OH MY GOD. NO. NO. NOT EVER. THERE WILL BE NO BLUE TEETH IN MY VAGINA.

The thermometer/app duo, I get that. We had a hard time conceiving the first baby, and my bedroom/bathroom were littered with scraps of paper with series of temperatures on them. Storing that in one easily accessible place makes sense. Similarly, I used a urine ovulation monitor kit - I wouldn't freak out if there was a version of that that synced to my phone. Such an app might have made it easier to show my doctor with actual charts that my cycles were weirdly, abnormally short, and also easier to summarize the abnormal mid-cycle bleeding. So this all seems fairly logical.

But a bluetooth menstrual cup? That's gonna be a hard sell... The visuals are hilarious though. I'm trying to imagine rubbing my phone against my crotch to re-sync it, and just.... no. Or what if it has a large syncing range and SOMEBODY ELSE ACCIDENTALLY SYNCS THEIR PHONE TO MY VAGINA?

Also who the fuck named it a looncup and can I please get some of the drugs they are clearly high on?

Ok. Stopping now. (But srsly wtf?)
posted by telepanda at 8:04 AM on March 23, 2016 [38 favorites]


As someone with irregularly paced periods, I can actually see the utility of getting a notification warning me that I've suddenly gone from light to heavy and I'm about to ruin yet another pair of underwear. Ideally it would be something very discreetly named so it wouldn't be obvious what it was, and I wouldn't need it to analyze the blood or anything.
posted by dinty_moore at 8:17 AM on March 23, 2016 [8 favorites]


The thing that bothers me most about this next "disruption" from Silly Valley is that using it for contraception is pretty likely to result in the "disruption" of ... a baby added to your life.

Because what do we call people who use the rhythm method? Parents.

The article doesn't mention the failure rate of their basic methodology at all, and while accurate reports vary, it's certainly nontrivial. It's an easy method to mess up -- for sure more labor-intensive, with variable measurements, than taking a pill every day or using a condom.
posted by Dashy at 8:18 AM on March 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


These two comments seem crazy contradictory, and rooted in a place of privilege inhabited by the type of person for whom our "safe effective birth control" works and is easily available.

If you're suggesting that the answer to the problems with restrictions on access to reproductive health care is that poor women use natural family planning (gussied up by "apps" that then sell their personal data to who knows where) I have to really strongly disagree with you.

Maybe there are women out there who don't have access to birth control, but do have access to a smart phone, and the time, knowledge, and ability to do fertility awareness, in exchange for submitting their bodies to the panopticon. But that seems like a kind of weird dystoptia that I can't hail as "revolutionizing reproductive health" in the slightest.
posted by yarly at 8:20 AM on March 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


I use (and like) Clue. I first heard about it from this To the Best of Our Knowledge episode where Ida Tin, the founder, discussed her experience with an unwanted pregnancy interrupting her career goals and traveling. I remember how (awesomely) jarring it was to hear a woman talk matter-of-factly about getting an abortion and wanting more tools to help manage her fertility/cycle.
posted by CMcG at 8:21 AM on March 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


Maybe there are women out there who don't have access to birth control, but do have access to a smart phone, and the time, knowledge, and ability to do fertility awareness, in exchange for submitting their bodies to the panopticon.

They're called teenagers.
posted by dinty_moore at 8:23 AM on March 23, 2016 [10 favorites]


Another yay-Clue-r here. (It's not pink!)
posted by minsies at 8:24 AM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Maybe there are women out there who don't have access to birth control, but do have access to a smart phone, and the time, knowledge, and ability to do fertility awareness, in exchange for submitting their bodies to the panopticon.

They're called teenagers.
posted by dinty_moore at 8:23 AM on March 23 [+] [!]

You think that teenagers should be encouraged to chose fertility awareness as their birth control method? And that this is "revolutionizing reproductive health"?

I don't question that technology, including smart phones and easier data collection, can help women. I just reject the notion that it is going to "revolutionize reproductive health" by channelling women and girls into an archaic, ineffective form of birth control. And yes, it's grating that all of a sudden a man comes along and sells a fertility charting technology and is hailed as a revolutionary, when women have been doing it for decades.
posted by yarly at 8:28 AM on March 23, 2016 [7 favorites]


I'm thinking about doing this. My current method, Skyla, has left me unimpressed. Two years of irregular periods and terrible cramps. Done. It was expensive and not covered by insurance to boot.
I got Clue to show my doctor how badly Skyla was treating me, and I like the interface. They keep adding things to track, and I may need to get a small thermometer to keep at my desk.
posted by domo at 8:29 AM on March 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


It makes a whole lot of sense (in a "where are our priorities?" way) that more women would have affordable, reliable smartphones than access to affordable, reliable birth control. YAY CAPITALISM and Hobby Lobby!
posted by witchen at 8:25 AM on March 23 [+] [!]


Last time I checked you could still buy condoms fairly easily. Again, if this is our new dystopia that teenagers have to use fertility awareness on their phones, I call that an abject failure of reproductive health policy, not some kind of thing to be celebrated.
posted by yarly at 8:30 AM on March 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


“Right now people have relationships with doctors,” he said. “In the future it will be with a brand. We will have sensing devices that cross-reference data about our blood, our interstitial tissue, our genes, our saliva and insights will be fed back to us. Analysis will be done through the phone.”

Yeah, that'll end well, trusting your health to brand instead of a doctor.

As a guy, I don't have much to add, but as Type 2 diabetic who's tried various apps to track my diabetes, I sympathize with the complexity of tracking apps. Very few seemed to be actually written by diabetics or seemingly talked to them, especially at the very beginning of the App revolution. Hopefully things will be get better, much faster when the market is half of humanity.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:30 AM on March 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


TP;DR

Too Pink; Didn't Read
posted by slipthought at 8:32 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


If you really want to get pregnant, just have sex every three days or so for two months. Sperm live long enough that the egg will get fertilized no matter when you ovulate. My wife was going to get into fertility tracking to time her cycle optimally, but we figured out the amount of time you spend tracking is better spent actually having sex.
posted by benzenedream at 8:36 AM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


You think that teenagers should be encouraged to chose fertility awareness as their birth control method? And that this is "revolutionizing reproductive health"?

I don't think it's revolutionizing reproductive health, but I do think it is a good idea to give teenagers as many options for birth control as possible, and encourage them to use more than one method at a time.

Seriously, guys. This is basic stuff - don't encourage kids to rely on just a pill or just a condom or just rhythm method. Double up so they have a safety in case they fuck up. And the fact that people in a metafilter thread are stuck thinking about birth control methods as an either/or thing is evidence that we have seriously fucked up reproductive health in this country, yes, but I think we have to deal with the fact that is is, in fact, fucked up, and see what can help in this matter.

So no, it's not the perfect revolution of birth control being more freely available, but I still think it's more of a help than a hinderance, and I'd rather see more of these products out on the market than less.
posted by dinty_moore at 8:36 AM on March 23, 2016 [13 favorites]


There are already a lot of apps (smartphone and web) that do various version of this--some more targeted to women wanting to get pregnant, others more towards just general health quantification. Connecting various tracking hardware seems like a no brainer.

I didn't find the temperature-taking and charting that odious back when I was trying to get knocked up, and I used fertilityfriend.com to log all my data. I had a nice print out if several months of charts to give to my reproductive endocrinologist. This was over 5 years ago now, it's been around a long time.

Yes, the symptothermal method (rhythm method is something different) is associated with the Catholic church, but so is delicious fried fish on Fridays and I'm not doing to turn down a beer battered cod just because the Pope eats it too. There's no reason you can't use HBC and also track your cycles. That's like double-bagging your birth control, for even greater protection (ask me how many children I know who briefly shared womb space with an IUD).

I'd love for teenaged girls to not only have easy and reliable access to the birth control method of their choice but to also learn about their own bodies in this very hands-on way. It doesn't have to be either/or.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:40 AM on March 23, 2016 [8 favorites]


So the rhythm method and the fertility awareness method are not the same in practice. Rhythm method is more about using your past cycles to determine your fertility whereas FAM is generally more accurate due to daily tracking.

My wife was going to get into fertility tracking to time her cycle optimally, but we figured out the amount of time you spend tracking is better spent actually having sex.

And that's great if everything is healthy, but another benefit of daily tracking is that it allows women to get more confirmation if something is actually wrong, when having sex isn't resulting in pregnancy.
posted by girlmightlive at 8:40 AM on March 23, 2016 [16 favorites]


Of all the things that need to be in the cloud, my vagina is not one of them. Pads don't come with a privacy policy, or sell my estrogen levels to the highest bidder.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:41 AM on March 23, 2016 [7 favorites]


Last time I checked you could still buy condoms fairly easily.

Yes, you can but that doesn't mean they are always effective. There is a lot of problems around reproduction/sex/sex ed in the States for teenagers, so reminding us that we can buy condoms works great for grown-ups, but not so much for teens who might be afraid of buying them for a whole host of reasons.
posted by Kitteh at 8:43 AM on March 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


Maybe there are women out there who don't have access to birth control, but do have access to a smart phone, and the time, knowledge, and ability to do fertility awareness, in exchange for submitting their bodies to the panopticon. But that seems like a kind of weird dystoptia that I can't hail as "revolutionizing reproductive health" in the slightest.

Nobody is saying that we should trade access to birth control for smartphone apps. That would certainly be dumb and horrible.

But, surely you can see the benefit of this kind of thing for: women for whom birth control doesn't work because [reasons], women who are on birth control and still want to keep track of things, women who are still experimenting to find the birth control that works best for them, women who aren't on birth control because they are trying to conceive and want to understand what their body is up to before diving into the medically assisted fertility world. etc, etc.

It's just another tool that women can choose to use if they want for whatever reasons they want.

(and for the record, I have thankfully found a form of birth control that works for me, personally in various wondrous ways that I'm grateful for daily, but totally would have used a bluetooth menstrual cup in my weird-ass period days)
posted by sparklemotion at 8:43 AM on March 23, 2016 [15 favorites]


We already have safe, effective birth control - we need more of that, not "apps" that place additional time and energy burdens on women!

There are roughly 150-200 million Catholic women that are fertile whose dogma forbids them from using contraception. While many of them certainly ignore that part of the dogma, if even 1% of them follow it and these apps give them better control of their fertility, I'm in favor of it.

There's also many women who have issues with IUDs or the pill that want to have safe(r), condom-free sex. It makes a good option for women that are morally opposed to abortions or are unable to get them and want a backup method to their primary birth control. More safe and effective options are a good thing. You mentioned pen and paper as a better option - there's many people, particularly in the younger generation that far prefer electronic interactions than physical ones for such things.

The article doesn't mention the failure rate of their basic methodology at all, and while accurate reports vary, it's certainly nontrivial. It's an easy method to mess up -- for sure more labor-intensive, with variable measurements, than taking a pill every day or using a condom.

Not their specific device (which just started shipping, so there's not enough data yet), but it totally talks about the efficacy of what they're doing.
In 2007, a group of German scientists published a multi-year study of 900 women in the Oxford-based, peer-reviewed journal Human Reproduction. They found that, under conditions of “perfect use,” only 0.6% of the patients practising FAM became pregnant over the course of a year.
And condoms have a massively high failure rate in typical use - the CDC says 18%. The pill's typical failure rate is 9%.
posted by Candleman at 8:48 AM on March 23, 2016 [10 favorites]


We already have safe, effective birth control - we need more of that, not "apps" that place additional time and energy burdens on women!

I use Clue (yay not pink!) for things like tracking menstrual migraines and anxiety - for me it really is a fundamental health thing rather than a reproductive thing and I'm so delighted that people are paying attention to it!
posted by ukdanae at 8:51 AM on March 23, 2016 [22 favorites]


I wouldn't use it as birth control, but if you aren't on hormonal birth control and aren't trying to conceive, there are health-related reasons that it's a good idea to know more than just what date you were last bleeding. Especially if you do want to have kids at some later point, or if you have (or are at risk for) other health problems that can mess with your hormones. Knowing more about how your body is operating at any given time is, as far as I'm concerned, a good thing, if you can avoid inducing excessive health anxiety. The number of people who just plain aren't aware of what their body's baseline is and therefore don't notice changes in that can be pretty scary.
posted by Sequence at 9:01 AM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


I've just always gone old school with Fertility Friend. It helped us avoid pregnancy without birth control usage for four years then helped me get pregnant the first month we tried for our son. I have an IUD now because I haven't had my first postpartum period yet (and he's one!), so we have this massive unknown occurring in my uterus and figured the best chance of not having kids way too close together for our comfort was something as dependable as an IUD.

But I will never put a Bluetooth something up my vag. That is just not my style. I like to be in tune with my body, but that's just a little too much information for my wants and needs.
posted by The Juche Idea at 9:02 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Clue has been very helpful to figuring out my early semi peri menopause situation, and it's difficult to describe what a difference it makes to have records to show a doctor with regard to getting taken seriously about anything. My period is a lot more complicated than it has been for most of my life.


Because what do we call people who use the rhythm method? Parents.

Being shitty about natural fertility planning is so incredibly insensitive to people with all kinds of challenges on the fertility front, and the above "joke" is often used to mock Catholics (especially Catholics of color who have "too many" children). It actually works very very well if you do it right, but there are other reasons to use fertility tracking besides contraception and conception.
posted by Lyn Never at 9:02 AM on March 23, 2016 [38 favorites]


I used an ancient calendar-based one of these in the original iPhone days, when I had two relationships in a row with women who were grossed out enough by menstruation that they ignored everything about it until their periods arrived.
Leaving aside the fertility aspects of it, knowing why your partner has suddenly started picking random fights and breaking plates is valuable information.
posted by Kreiger at 9:03 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


As a teenager, I wasn't having sex but I was dealing with some seriously fucked-up period-related stuff, and I had zero idea that it wasn't normal and I did not have to be in that much extremely debilitating pain. A good menstrual cycle tracker would have been fantastic for me, especially if it could have had some way to ping me and say "hey, your cycles are totally wacky and your pain ratings are totally wacky and you should not be *completely* nonfunctional and throwing up all over the place this many days a month, maybe mention that to someone!"

These days I don't use any of them - god bless the IUD and its near-eradication of my cycle altogether. But when I was in the market a few years ago, several things drove me crazy. The pink, the assumptions that I must want to get pregnant, and the gender assumptions. I don't think mcalc is a thing anymore, but I really appreciated that it did not assume "has period = woman." I'll look for something similar when I need to start figuring out the whole "what is menopause even?" thing, probably in the next decade or so.
posted by Stacey at 9:05 AM on March 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


The pink, the assumptions that I must want to get pregnant, and the gender assumptions. I don't think mcalc is a thing anymore, but I really appreciated that it did not assume "has period = woman."

My genderqueer partner is a big fan of the Clue app, in part because they don't do those things.
posted by Candleman at 9:07 AM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


There's also many women who have issues with IUDs or the pill that want to have safe(r), condom-free sex

These apps will not help you have safer - nevermind safe - sex. No app will. It might help you get pregnant or not (depending on your aims) but that is not the same thing as safe sex.
posted by Dysk at 9:14 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


I like that with Clue I can modify it so it doesn't bug me with my fertility window. I just want to know when I might be able to expect my next period.
posted by Kitteh at 9:15 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Clue is one of those apps that I'll totally evangelize, but I'm kind of terrified by the fact that it's free. I wish they'd ask for money. I'd totally give them money. They don't seem to have an idea yet how they're going to monetize it, which is worrisome. But at least it's proven that this is really a thing people want, so if it goes away, I'd expect something similar to come in and replace it.
posted by Sequence at 9:18 AM on March 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


If you really want to get pregnant, just have sex every three days or so for two months. Sperm live long enough that the egg will get fertilized no matter when you ovulate.

This reads as an ignorant comment to someone who has been trying to get pregnant for months and has been told it may take years.

Also, if you are having issues conceiving doctors demand data to help assess the problem. Clue has been really useful in helping me provide that data.

Finally, I don't think fertility tracking apps/technology is a replacement for anything; it is just one more tool in the toolbox. I prefer a world where we are providing women with more tools rather than ignoring their existence (ala Health app in iOS having no period tracking capability for years as mentioned in the article).
posted by CMcG at 9:21 AM on March 23, 2016 [26 favorites]


If this technology works, it could be revolutionary. So many women can't (or shouldn't) take hormonal birth control due to other health issues. To be able to accurately track my fertility with a device would be wonderful! But then, I'm a huge fan of wearable tech. I like having data about my body 24/7. And I couldn't care less about 3rd parties gleaning my information. I already assume that everything about my life is tracked and sold and saved.
posted by Annabelle74 at 9:22 AM on March 23, 2016


I love Clue as an app, I just use it to expect my next period and sometimes put in cramps/pain but usually forget.

The article is pretty bad, though, starting with [Guy], whose career was in this position, and [Gal], who is super beautiful, talked about menstruation. It also glosses over privacy concerns fairly quickly.
posted by jeather at 9:26 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


If you really want to get pregnant, just...

Yeah, that doesn't work any better here than "If you really want to lose weight, just..."
posted by Etrigan at 9:28 AM on March 23, 2016 [21 favorites]


In 2007, a group of German scientists published a multi-year study of 900 women in the Oxford-based, peer-reviewed journal Human Reproduction. They found that, under conditions of “perfect use,” only 0.6% of the patients practising FAM became pregnant over the course of a year.
And condoms have a massively high failure rate in typical use - the CDC says 18%. The pill's typical failure rate is 9%.
It's not fair to compare "perfect" anything with the condom failure rate. The condom failure rate includes people who say on Monday morning "my method of birth control is condoms" and then fuck with no condom on Saturday night.
posted by idiopath at 9:29 AM on March 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


using an app to track my cycle has been revolutionary for my physical and mental health. the idea that people would only use these apps for fertility tracking (which is still a perfectly valid use) is odd and just as strange as when my gyno laughed in my face when i talked about doing a self exam on my cervix. women, men, and medical science are so terrified of women's bodies that it's foreign to most people that you might want to figure out how things are being influenced by constantly rotating cycle that impacts seemingly everything for some of us.

Because what do we call people who use the rhythm method? Parents.

this is a really shitty and untrue thing to say. pulling out has worked over here for more than a decade - i also know plenty of bcp, iud, and condom babies. sometimes it feels like people are so nasty about pull out/rhythm method/fertility awareness because they really need to believe that it's significantly worse than other methods, even though the math isn't that far apart.
posted by nadawi at 9:30 AM on March 23, 2016 [18 favorites]


Yarly, I have no idea what you're on about. I have been using a period tracker for a while now, and it's awesome! I have irregular periods and it figured out my weird cycle way better than I was doing on my own, and it sends me notifications that it's starting. Etc. No one has ever suggested to me it be used for birth control. Tracking periods is useful. This is good for women.
posted by agregoli at 9:30 AM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Another clue fan here.....my favorite feature is that it sends me a notification a few days before I'm supposed to start. I can be sure and have supplies stocked. Genius! And, yes, I would give them money too.
posted by pearlybob at 9:30 AM on March 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


I just want to say I'm really impressed with the name "Clue". It's subtle and won't raise eyebrows if it appears amongst your apps. It's nice not to have to explain why you've got something like 'Contraction Master' installed on your phone.
posted by phooky at 9:31 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


i really need to move to clue! i don't much love the one i've been using, but hadn't wanted to change unless i knew the one i was changing to is better. i wonder if i can export data from the one i'm using to clue so i don't have to wait the 5 months or so for it to figure out my odd ass cycle.
posted by nadawi at 9:32 AM on March 23, 2016


I just finished my period but Clue kindly reminded me that it would also be a good time to perform a breast exam. I'm like, "Oh yeah, that is a thing I should do. Cool."
posted by Kitteh at 9:32 AM on March 23, 2016


All I can think of - and I'm a tech lover, someone who back in the day tried to do statistical analysis to predict my insane cycles - is the privacy aspect. Maybe I'm heavily leaning on a the dystopia mindset, but letting other people have my personal data - rewriting it? Falsifying it to lead me to inaccurate conclusions? Shaming, condemning me based on my decisions? I just get that creepy fascist control vibe, one that a non-connected app would avoid.
posted by cobaltnine at 9:34 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh and I use Clue as well...as other people have noted it has entries for migraines and cramps and sleep and sex and etc...easy to use and awesome.
posted by agregoli at 9:34 AM on March 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


can you track things like bowel movements on clue too?
posted by nadawi at 9:36 AM on March 23, 2016


nadawi - yes.
posted by Kitteh at 9:37 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


If you really want to get pregnant, just have sex every three days or so for two months. Sperm live long enough that the egg will get fertilized no matter when you ovulate. My wife was going to get into fertility tracking to time her cycle optimally, but we figured out the amount of time you spend tracking is better spent actually having sex.

I just rage-typed out eight lines of sarcasm, but deleted it in favor of: Please, please don't say things like that anymore. Like everything else in life, it's not that simple for some people.

ANYWAY I will definitely try Clue. I was using Glow for fertility reasons, but when I ended that quest I didn't want to keep it around for plain old period tracking. Downloading now!
posted by kimberussell at 9:39 AM on March 23, 2016 [28 favorites]


If you really want to get pregnant, just have sex every three days or so for two months. Sperm live long enough that the egg will get fertilized no matter when you ovulate. My wife was going to get into fertility tracking to time her cycle optimally, but we figured out the amount of time you spend tracking is better spent actually having sex.

HAHAHAHA. Currently 3% of children in the US are conceived using some form of assisted reproductive technology, and it's not just because people aren't getting busy often enough.

Count me as another person who was tracking all this stuff while trying to conceive, so I could have an intelligent discussion with my reproductive endocrinologist, and we still ultimately ended up doing IVF. Temperature tracking was a real struggle for me because I had a hard time getting my temperature correctly (For example, if I was aiming to take my temperature at 6am, somehow I would find myself getting up to use the restroom some days within an hour before, and some days not), and my temperature readings just weren't really clear. I would have loved to have had some sort of device that could take my temperature all night while I was sleeping and identify my basal temperature correctly.
posted by antimony at 9:41 AM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Clue is one of those apps that I'll totally evangelize, but I'm kind of terrified by the fact that it's free. I wish they'd ask for money. I'd totally give them money. They don't seem to have an idea yet how they're going to monetize it, which is worrisome.

Loving the idea of advertisers seizing on menstrual cycle as the next hot way to target ads. You knooooow how tone deaf it would be! Suddenly your entire ad inventory across all the major display networks is replaced by Dove chocolate ads and body-positive ads for cosmetics and tampons and sappy romcoms.

I suspect Google or Facebook could infer many of their female users' cycles and give advertisers the option to use them in targeting, without needing any access to biometric data. I also suspect that it hasn't happened, and I suspect that is because everyone involved is too embarrassed to bring it up as a possibility. Or because someone has created an FAQ page that's just "THINK OF THE PRESS REACTION PLEASE" and whenever anyone brings it up they are promptly sent there.

Amazon probably already knows when many of us have our periods owing to next-day/same-day supply purchases and the like, and now I really want to see if I can find any patterns in my Amazon spams about deals and products to check out. Unfortunately I have been pregnant and/or had lactational amenorrhea for the majority of the last four years so my emails are not much use for sleuthing this out :(


But OK seriously the main most obvious reason to worry about the biometric data aspect is that if you're tracking basal body temperatures you can get a fairly good idea whether the tracked woman is pregnant before she even has enough hormones in her system for a positive pregnancy test. And being able to get a pregnant woman's attention even a few days earlier than the competition is worth BANK to a lot of advertisers.
posted by town of cats at 9:41 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


There are some bizarrely paternalistic comments in this thread. Tech should ignore an aspect of my existence that I'm caught up in every day of my life because I could just go on using a form of birth control that fucks with my already fucked mental health? And if I really want to track my fertility I should just write it down in a journal like the 21st century never happened? And we can just assume birth control is the only reason I would be interested in tracking an aspect of my health that affects my entire life, both the day-to-day and the whole long course of it? Please. Who do some of y'all even think you are?
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 9:43 AM on March 23, 2016 [48 favorites]


nadawi, you can import data from other apps into Clue as long as they integrate with Apple Health.
I really like how customizable Clue is. If I don't want to see a notification or if I don't want to track something, I can hide it.
posted by domo at 9:47 AM on March 23, 2016


oh fantastic! also from the android download page :

" What's New **Cycle Exclusion** Did you have an atypically long or short cycle? You can now exclude individual cycles from Clue’s calculations from Analysis."

*excited muppet flail*
posted by nadawi at 9:53 AM on March 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


I keep thinking that we need a period-tracking app (optionally with fertility tracking) named something like 'WILL I BLEED" or "BLOOD TRACKER" or "SHARK WEEK", because fuck the names some of these companies come up with.
posted by rmd1023 at 9:54 AM on March 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


.Maybe there are women out there who don't have access to birth control, but do have access to a smart phone

Of *course* there are, and if this is news to you then perhaps you shouldn't be making any declarations about birth control access and/or disadvantage at all.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 9:56 AM on March 23, 2016 [11 favorites]


I would totally use a period-tracking app called Shark Week.
posted by The Juche Idea at 9:57 AM on March 23, 2016 [9 favorites]


can you track things like bowel movements on clue too?
I seem to have signed up for their email newsletter. One of their articles recently was about why tracking your poop is a good and helpful thing. Apparently you can also change the notification text, though I haven't figured that part out. (I just know folks who've changed it to stuff like "the Crimson Tide concert should begin in two days.")
posted by Karmakaze at 9:58 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Also, relatedly, article in the NY Times today about period tracking. (I didn't see it posted here already - apologies if I missed it and am repeating)
posted by rmd1023 at 10:00 AM on March 23, 2016


One of their articles recently was about why tracking your poop is a good and helpful thing.

i am in love. dear other uterus having ibs (c or d) sufferers - tracking your ibs alongside your cycle is really really useful if you don't do it already. for me it was arguably more important than even the dietary changes/tracking.
posted by nadawi at 10:03 AM on March 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


Yarly, I have no idea what you're on about. I have been using a period tracker for a while now, and it's awesome! I have irregular periods and it figured out my weird cycle way better than I was doing on my own, and it sends me notifications that it's starting. Etc. No one has ever suggested to me it be used for birth control. Tracking periods is useful. This is good for women.
posted by agregoli at 9:30 AM on March 23
[1 favorite +] [!]


It's the article and the company that is saying that this is "revolutionary" for birth control. I have no problem with using technology to chart reproductive health in general. It's the frankly terrifying idea that we are *celebrating* this as helping women because we just can't get them access other (more effective, and less costly in terms of time and energy for the woman) forms of birth control. If that is truly our state of affairs, things are bad.
posted by yarly at 10:19 AM on March 23, 2016


Well, it sounds like this app is already spreading beginner level awareness of the lack of access to birth control, so in this instance way to go Silicon Valley!
posted by the agents of KAOS at 10:24 AM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


There are some bizarrely paternalistic comments in this thread. Tech should ignore an aspect of my existence that I'm caught up in every day of my life because I could just go on using a form of birth control that fucks with my already fucked mental health?

I am not saying that tech shouldn't do this or that fertility awareness is bad. It's just that this article seems to suggest that the answer to the loss of our reproductive freedom is "more tech, and by the way we will monetize your period data for our own profit" as opposed to "more funding for Planned Parenthood." I don't have any problems with people who think this is a nifty option for themselves. I do think people who think that this is an answer for teenagers too scared to buy condoms is deluding themselves.
posted by yarly at 10:24 AM on March 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


I am not saying that tech shouldn't do this or that fertility awareness is bad. It's just that this article seems to suggest that the answer to the loss of our reproductive freedom is "more tech, and by the way we will monetize your period data for our own profit" as opposed to "more funding for Planned Parenthood."

Why can't we do both? These options are in no way in opposition to each other.
posted by dinty_moore at 10:27 AM on March 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


It's the article and the company that is saying that this is "revolutionary" for birth control.

I can only assume that you are trolling at this point because this statement is blatantly untrue.
posted by sparklemotion at 10:28 AM on March 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


Reading the comments here has convinced me to download Clue. I track most of my other bodily inputs/outputs through MyFitnessPal and my Jawbone, so why the heck not. I don't need to deal with my fertility, but there might be other useful bits of info to use.
posted by Fig at 10:31 AM on March 23, 2016


I do think people who think that this is an answer for teenagers too scared to buy condoms is deluding themselves.

I definitely don't think this is the answer for teenagers--unless teenage girls want to track their periods to learn a little about them, esp if they are as terrifyingly erratic as I was at that age--but I think this is a tool in the toolkit for women who want more data about their bodies for healthcare providers who tend to not listen to us when we tell them things.

Proper no pandering/infantilizing sex ed is what I want for teenagers as well as the US to quit acting as though teenagers aren't going to have sex. All the condoms in the world aren't going to help teenagers if we just shame them about wanting to use them in the first place.
posted by Kitteh at 10:31 AM on March 23, 2016


I've been using Kindara for over a year as I try to conceive. It's been super helpful. It's been reassuring to see my temperature rise when I ovulate and dip when my period is about to start. It has helped me see where my fertile days are, and when they are done.

What's more, they have a good community and knowledge base. There's a private Facebook group of Kindara users who have had miscarriages who are trying to conceive again. There are FAQs about cervical mucous and PCOS. You can share your charts and get feedback from people with more experience interpreting bbt charts, people doing infertility treatments, and people to cheer you on (unwanted infertility is tiring and discouraging). I enjoy having a growing resource and a community talking about this aspect of life which is so poorly taught in school and socially muted.

And if they ever get Wink going, I wouldn't mind taking my basal body temperature without having to wake up enough to write it down. Yes please!
posted by sadmadglad at 10:32 AM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


It's the article and the company that is saying that this is "revolutionary" for birth control.

I can only assume that you are trolling at this point because this statement is blatantly untrue.
posted by sparklemotion at 10:28 AM on March 23 [1 favorite +] [!]


What? It's the headline of the article. According to the company bio, the founder says "My eyes were opened to the magic of the feminine and I suddenly understood and appreciated women on a deeper level. I also saw how this understanding and appreciation is lacking in our culture. I want to live in a world where the masculine and the feminine meet each other as equals, each sharing their unique gifts, and Kindara is my vehicle to make this happen."

Clearly, he thinks he is doing something that can fairly be characterized as revolutionary.
posted by yarly at 10:38 AM on March 23, 2016


Pro BBT tracking tip: get a thermometer that stores the last temp taken, so you don't have to write it down right then. When you're ready to log it, retrieve the stored data. I think my last bbt thermometer automatically stored the last three readings and you could just scroll through them. That way if you wake up at 4 am and have to pee, you can just stick that thing in your mouth till it beeps, put it on your side table, then go on your merry way to the bathroom. No need to write anything down or open an app right then.

It took us five years to conceive, can you tell?
posted by soren_lorensen at 10:40 AM on March 23, 2016


The one scary aspect here is that, unlike keeping a calendar or some other analogue tracking process, these apps enable corporations to freely trade women's fertility information. As if they didn't already know everything else about you.
posted by constantinescharity at 10:47 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


Yarly, maybe we just don't give a shit about what some executive thinks about the supposed fertility control revolution because actual women find these apps very helpful?
posted by agregoli at 10:50 AM on March 23, 2016 [9 favorites]


Some of these comments here (HERE, even!) explain why this is so important. I don't know why it's such a difficult concept to grasp that menstrual cycles are an integral part of life and some people might want to track it.

I'm reminded of being in my early 20's and my parents came to visit and my dad was scandalized by my copy of "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" on my bookshelf. It's an amazing book and I learned so much about my body, so much that most people, even those living with menstrual cycles, don't know.

I'm sure it's because it's so related to sex, and having children, or not having children. So fraught. Get over it. It also affects mood and energy level and appetite and so many other things, and that's only in my personal experience and I'm lucky enough to have really regular and relatively non-disruptive cycles.

I've already bought a Wink and I'm waiting somewhat patiently to arrive. I'm fairly ambivalent about having children but I'm always wanted to track my temperature to have a more accurate view of my cycle but just not enough to do it manually, because it's mostly curiosity so I don't have strong enough other motivation.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 10:53 AM on March 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


>> Because what do we call people who use the rhythm method? Parents.

Being shitty about natural fertility planning ...
this is a really shitty and untrue thing to say ...


Thanks for calling me shitty twice, it's a great MetaFeeling.

As you know, it's an old joke for teenagers -- the joke isn't shitty, but unplanned pregnancy sure is. There's ground truth underneath it: counting days between periods, or even getting detailed enough to take temperature, is nowhere near as reliable a birth control method as a daily pill, or a condom. There are too many biological variables in day counts, or daily temperatures, to rely on it, let alone compare it to complete block of ovulation or barrier to sperm.

If you as a person are so lucky as to be perfectly regular, and never get a fever, and thus haven't gotten pregnant? Great. But would you breezily recommend it to a young adult near you,? Nope. Can you find a random web page to tell you it's great? Sure. Planned Parenthood, however, says "Twenty-four out of every 100 couples who use fertility awareness-based methods each year will have a pregnancy if they don't always use the method correctly or consistently. " in contrast to the pill ( Less than 1 out of 100 women will get pregnant each year if they always take the pill each day as directed; About 9 out of 100 women will get pregnant each year if they don’t always take the pill each day as directed. )

As you can read from my comments, I'm really only addressing the contraception side of this. I would agree that it's shitty to apply that casual joke to infertile couples. But it's a joke that teenagers need.
posted by Dashy at 11:01 AM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


are there a rash of teenagers using this thread for sex ed that i don't know about?

As you know, it's an old joke for teenagers -- the joke isn't shitty,

yes it is.
posted by nadawi at 11:11 AM on March 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


There's been quite a bit of sociological research done about technology "revealing" the mysterious internal processes of women's fertility. One of the most studied is ultrasound technology. People don't usually think of obstetric ultrasound as a dystopian control over women's bodies; it's generally considered a new and fascinating medical ability. But ultrasound technology has changed the social relationship of a fetus, from something entirely inside a woman, really knowable and experience-able only by her, to a fetus now viewable, interpretable, and approvable by medical workers. Then ultrasound moved into a "bonding" experience with fathers--to a "keepsake viewing" process to share with family--to scans now posted on social media. And of course ultrasound has become incredibly politicized in the context of abortion--not just because of the information generated by ultrasound, but in the attempt to mandate use of the technology upon women seeking abortion. Was ultrasound developed for these purposes? No. But its practices are shaped by our current patriarchal society.

These apps will also be shaped by our current society. Many women will use this information to enhance their own lives and make medical choices. Scientists will use it for the advancement of human knowledge. Marketers will use it to make money; employers and insurers will use it to increase their bottom line; crazy weirdos will attempt to "game" their interactions with women; and we'll probably see people's menstrual records being subpoenaed within the next five or seven years.
posted by Hypatia at 11:14 AM on March 23, 2016 [15 favorites]


How long before a judge allows the use of this data to convict a woman of illegally aborting a fetus?

I mean I would have laughed too, a few years ago when we weren't nearly as far down the Road to Gilead as we are now, but given that there are women who have served/are serving time right now for failed self-abortions, and even for a miscarriage the courts decided was probably an abortion despite a lack of proof, I can't laugh anymore.

I think I'm going to need to feel like women's reproductive rights are more protected before I get excited about syncing up uteruses with Big Data.
posted by emjaybee at 11:14 AM on March 23, 2016 [24 favorites]


Not to pile on too much to the "have sex every three days" comment, but yeah, that's extremely lame to say. It's not always possible or necessary for every couple to have sex every three fucking days, thanks. I used a fertility tracking app for trying to conceive. It was extra helpful because my husband travels many days out of the month, so he could schedule his travel for days that I wouldn't be fertile anyway, and make sure to be home on the days when I would.

More importantly, when I finally did get a positive pregnancy test, checking the previous menstruation dates on the app helped me to realize that the timing absolutely wasn't right for getting a positive test on this cycle (far too early), and spurred me to go to the hospital when I had some cramps and light bleeding. Confusingly, these symptoms are both indicative of a successful pregnancy (implantation bleeding? wtf?) or a miscarriage/ectopic pregnancy. A few ultrasounds and blood tests later it seems I had a miscarriage (ultrasound suggested possibly ectopic) that self-resolved. Having the dates in hand was invaluable for me to talk intelligently with my OB and to realize initally that something was wrong, which, if it had been a bad ectopic pregnancy might have made the difference between an exploded fallopian tube and fixing it early.

More information is generally a good thing.
posted by permiechickie at 11:14 AM on March 23, 2016 [9 favorites]


The NYT article raises the possibility that period-tracking apps could collect better data on menstrual issues than we currently have, and that could aid researchers who are finally trying to figure out how women are affected by their menstrual cycles. I find that both fascinating and vaguely concerning for privacy reasons.

My period tracking app has definitely improved my qualify of life, and I recommend it to everyone who gets periods.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:15 AM on March 23, 2016 [4 favorites]


There's ground truth underneath it: counting days between periods, or even getting detailed enough to take temperature, is nowhere near as reliable a birth control method as a daily pill, or a condom. There are too many biological variables in day counts, or daily temperatures, to rely on it, let alone compare it to complete block of ovulation or barrier to sperm.

Actually, no - if you a) use the sympto-thermal method (this is the kind of thing people usually mean when they talk about FAM or NFP, and is a lot more detailed than the old count-14-days-from period 'rhythm method'), and b) follow the method correctly (which is a fair amount of work and won't suit everyone), the failure rate is something like 0.3%. It is surprisingly reliable - that's about the same 'perfect use' failure rate as the pill, and better than that of condoms.
posted by Catseye at 11:22 AM on March 23, 2016 [5 favorites]


I've charted exactly one cycle and it turned out to be one resulting in identical twins who were born at 28 weeks and 0 days. They were 27 and 3 by ultrasound and menstrual dating, and when they were born several doctors thought based on their skin and some other indicators that they were probably younger than that, gestationally. It made no difference to their treatment plan, but for my own peace of mind it was really wonderful to be able to say that no, I knew for certain they could not be 26 weeks and actually believed them to be 28.

Anyway, that's my charting story. I can't imagine it's any fun when you have to do it for years and years, and I have a lot of sympathy for people who struggle with fertility, but I found it so fun and empowering to watch my temp chart and see all the different weird little indicators that might or might not be associated with conception.

(As a birth control method FAM has no appeal for me because the fertile time of the month is when I enjoy sex the most, and having to resort to abstinence/doing other things/barrier methods/whatever during that time in particular feels like a big loss. Is that not as much the case for other people? It doesn't seem to come up very often in these conversations.)
posted by gerstle at 11:24 AM on March 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


pulling out 100% of the time, knowing when peak ovulation is and doing other stuff, etc is probably not as fun as it could be, but it's way more fun than the mental breakdowns i get on the pill or stabbing my husband's penis with iud strings. for me it's a range of not great choices to pick from. i admit i have similar questions for people on hormonal birth control - i personally really missed ovulating when i was on the pill.
posted by nadawi at 11:30 AM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


Yarly, I very much had the same reaction to engineer dude and some of the other stuff in the article: what, engineering didn't teach me everything about everything? Well now that I know everything, I'll make it all a million times better! (Current work situation may be coloring my perception a bit.). The bit about fertility tracking replacing HBC also seemed like a bit of an oversell: if you never want kids and HBC works, some women might prefer having more days for fun sexy times to swabbing their cheek.

But despite the marketing spiel, I'm excited about having more and better options to track this kind of data. I've always had erratic cycles without HBC (and even then it's not like clockwork), but that stuff also sends my BP up. I also hate my period and all the attending unpleasantness so much I forget about it as much as possible. As a teenager I would tune out my body as much as possible I hated it so much (because paying attention really didn't seem to track well enough to spare me a bloody mess, so why bother?). Now that I'm using implanon and don't have the pill packaging reminder, Clue's heads up reminds me when to stock up and when to be extra careful about what I eat unless I want gastric misery (usually, I still have to occasional really short cycle that messes it all up).

A shark week watch could save me countless stained sheets/underwear/pants.
posted by ghost phoneme at 11:33 AM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


for me it's a range of not great choices to pick from

Yeah. Agreed.
posted by gerstle at 11:39 AM on March 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


the failure rate is something like 0.3%.

Citation needed.

But your description of the rhythm method already shows how difficult and unlikely it is to get anywhere near that right, so.
posted by Dashy at 12:03 PM on March 23, 2016


We already have safe, effective birth control - we need more of that, not "apps" that place additional time and energy burdens on women!

Speak for yourself. I'm one of the many women who can't take most forms of hormonal birth control due to health risk (genetic thrombophilias, yay), and most of the remaining options are less effective or have other downsides, costs, and side effects to contend with. I'm glad those other options exist (not sleeping with cis dudes is currently proving both safe and effective!) but it's always nice to add more to the toolkit.

That said, the privacy/security issues with these apps are a real concern--but that's a problem with the data mining for monetization business model (and lack of consumer privacy safeguards) more broadly--not a problem with women using technology to better understand their bodies.
posted by karayel at 12:15 PM on March 23, 2016 [9 favorites]


(ok and also the problem is with the patriarchy, as Hypatia's excellent comment points out)
posted by karayel at 12:24 PM on March 23, 2016


Citation needed.

Well, from the very article we are discussing:
If it is practised perfectly, fertility awareness can be almost as effective as the pill at preventing pregnancy. In 2007, a group of German scientists published a multi-year study of 900 women in the Oxford-based, peer-reviewed journal Human Reproduction. They found that, under conditions of “perfect use,” only 0.6% of the patients practising FAM became pregnant over the course of a year.
But your description of the rhythm method already shows how difficult and unlikely it is to get anywhere near that right, so.

No, the rhythm method is - as I mentioned - the old-fashioned counting approach, where you approximate the date of ovulation by counting a set number of days from your period. FAM using the sympto-thermal method is about measuring the things your body is doing to signal ovulation, so that you know exactly when that is happening (and can work out when it will be happening in the future based on patterns you can detect). It can be time-consuming and doesn't suit everyone - but for people who are interested in doing it, it's very doable and not hugely complicated. Apps like the kind mentioned in the OP make it easier by logging data and drawing patterns and conclusions for you. Seriously, I have first-hand experience of actually doing this, other people here have too, it's really not some strange occult method we're all guessing at.

People tend to get grouchy about this kind of method being dismissed out of hand, because (and I get that you are not doing this on purpose, I'm just letting you know) it plays into a wider narrative of, pfft, women, what do you know about your own bodies?

To give you one example: a lot of women use this method to get pregnant, because knowing when you are ovulating makes conceiving easier. But all pregnancies are dated from the date of your last period, because if you're not tracking it's easier to know when that is than when ovulation is - we just roughly guess that ovulation is about two weeks after that. You would think that knowing when you ovulated would supersede that if you had the information, but many, many medical professionals are very reluctant to accept that women could know what we are talking about here. So lots of women who know when they ovulated, and know it wasn't 14 days after the date of their last period, will actually make up a period date in order to have their pregnancies dated accurately without having to argue about it.
posted by Catseye at 12:56 PM on March 23, 2016 [24 favorites]


I use a really simple one called Period Tracker... it lets me input my period/moods/ symptoms, it has a little heart symbol for days when I have sex and little flower symbol for days when I am fertile... what else do you need really? It's pink but I even use it as my regular calendar since it's so quick to load. Inputting data into an app is a pain no matter which one you use, I'd rather use something minimal that I can open and take in at a glance, no extra steps to follow, no data sent back to the mothership, done.
posted by subdee at 1:36 PM on March 23, 2016


Like honestly I feel that this is a solved problem... maybe not a monetized and big-data-crunched problem, but that's an entirely separate issue, y'know?
posted by subdee at 1:38 PM on March 23, 2016


I used Period Tracker beforw Clue but Clue is SO much more helpful with all the data it can track, reminders, etc. I used to use a paper calendar so just an app calendar isn't really an upgrade for me.
posted by agregoli at 1:56 PM on March 23, 2016


And I'm not tracking fertility because I don't need to, so sex and fertility only doesn't help.
posted by agregoli at 2:00 PM on March 23, 2016


How long before a judge allows the use of this data to convict a woman of illegally aborting a fetus?

Or how long until it's "required" for all presumed-fertile women to have some sort of monitoring device, either by insurance companies hoping to sidestep fertility treatment costs (they'll collect the data & draw their own conclusions, and good luck disputing that). I put "required" in quotes because surely there will be an opt-out clause but the company will retain the rights to either deny coverage for very specific and necessary care (annual OB/GYN visits, birth control, even prenatal care and labor) OR they'll levy a financial penalty.

Never doubt the capacity of a health insurance company's willingness to eliminate personal autonomy in the name of profit. Big data is the best thing to happen to these people since "buy two, get one free" congressmen.
posted by sobell at 2:13 PM on March 23, 2016 [1 favorite]


I've noticed that every online discussion of FAM kind off goes the way catseye describes and I don't know why it irks me so, so much, but it does. I've never used FAM to avoid pregnancy, though I did use it to attempt to conceive, and I've got a wonderful IUD installed as we speak, so I guess I should have no dog in this race, but man it annoys me when people jump straight to conflating FAM to rhythm method and then start making Vatican Roulette jokes.

It really does come off as paternalistic and dismissive, even when it comes from other women. How about we let people decide for themselves what is the best, most appropriate method of fertility control for their own bodies and situations? And while we're at it, actually learn the science (yes, real actual non-bible-based science) behind FAM. Female bodies are not unknowable mysteries and telling female-bodied people to not worry our pretty little heads over how and why and when they do what they do so we can make our own choices about how to control our fertility is not a good look on anyone.
posted by soren_lorensen at 2:15 PM on March 23, 2016 [19 favorites]


The ability to conveniently keep track of what my body is up to, right now, trumps any sort of nebulously paranoid Handmaiden's Tale fears. I like science and data and having access to information in a convenient and useful way. I am totally into the possibility of knowing my uterine lining's rate of flow! That's awesome! Bodies are cool! I wish there were more opportunities for people in general, and women in particular, to understand the interesting things bodies are up to.

It does a lot for my sense of bodily autonomy to be able to say more than just, "ugh, I have cramps, ugh, I am bleeding from down there, ugh my body is unpredictable and my enemy and an inconvenience." I personally get a lot of enjoyment out of being able to say "My uterine wall sure is shedding aggressively this month!" Making it easier for people to track their menstrual cycle is one step closer to a kind of self-knowledge that can be embarrassing and difficult for women to achieve. There's so much stigma and shame associated with our body's functions; it's nice to have Clue on my phone between Instagram and Twitter as just a normal, if occasionally annoying, part of day to day life.
posted by ChuraChura at 3:08 PM on March 23, 2016 [20 favorites]


Well, one thing this thread has achieved is to generate a ton of traffic for Clue. I, for one, have combined several suggestions from upthread and I look forward to receiving my new custom notification that "Shark Week is coming" in a few days.
posted by telepanda at 3:33 PM on March 23, 2016 [6 favorites]


Haha telepanda, that's what mine says! "Shark week approaches" :)
posted by agregoli at 4:53 PM on March 23, 2016


Thank you for Clue. Other apps I've used have forced me into a 28-day cycle. Variations have been impossible.
posted by bendy at 5:31 PM on March 23, 2016


Downloaded Clue for my to g-daughters.

The more you know...
posted by BlueHorse at 7:52 PM on March 23, 2016


OH MY GOD. NO. NO. NOT EVER. THERE WILL BE NO BLUE TEETH IN MY VAGINA.

Vagina Dentata Azure
posted by Dip Flash at 7:55 PM on March 23, 2016


Late to the thread but I wanted to share that I'm another fan of FAM both as a trying-to-conceive and as birth control. When I first got married I got on the pill for a few months and in a little while I was ready to murder someone, I was JUST.SO.IRRITABLE all the damn time. We switched to condoms for a while but then I learned about the Taking Charge of Your Fertility book and loved it. Information is power, definetly. That knowledge about my own body and the ovulation symptoms I started to recognize, together with the simple Period Tracker app was all I needed from then on. We still keep condoms on hand in case there's a day when it's maybe too close to call, but generally I've gotten very good at recognizing my fertile days. So good in fact that out of five times I've been pregnant (the first two ended up in miscarriage) I got pregnant on the first try on 4 of them. With the other one it took 4 months, probably because we were still figuring out my thyroid medication after it turned out I had hypothyroidism and it probably caused the miscarriages.

Also, like someone up there mentioned, my obgyn still has a little circular calendar thingy to date pregnancies from the day of the last period, even when I'm pretty sure of what day I conceived each of my babies.
posted by CrazyLemonade at 8:34 PM on March 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


I spent a year trying to get pregnant with picture perfect 28 day cycles and frequent sex. I finally started charting using the symptothermal method and discovered that my "picture perfect" cycles involved ovulating on day 21 and having a 6 or 7 day luteal phase. So no, there's no "just" about it.
posted by KathrynT at 9:33 PM on March 23, 2016 [3 favorites]


I asked Clue if they sold their data. This was their reply:

"Hi,

Thanks so much for reaching out. You can read all about our privacy policy here: http://www.helloclue.com/privacy.html.

Our main goal is to provide you with your data and without an account with us, we do not collect your data at all. However, if you have an account, your data may be used for anonymous research to push reproductive health forward. We DO NOT sell your data at all, nor give it to any companies or organisations which might misuse it. Our purpose of collecting your data is for medical and scientific use.

The collected data will not be used individually but as big data, as the researchers we work with are interested in trends and patterns that were not available previously. The researchers will also never know who you are.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any questions at all.

With love from Clue in Berlin
Zend"
posted by agregoli at 8:12 AM on March 24, 2016 [13 favorites]


> How long before a judge allows the use of this data to convict a woman of illegally aborting a fetus?

I mean I would have laughed too, a few years ago when we weren't nearly as far down the Road to Gilead as we are now, but given that there are women who have served/are serving time right now for failed self-abortions, and even for a miscarriage the courts decided was probably an abortion despite a lack of proof, I can't laugh anymore.


Indiana crammed as many anti-abortion bills as it could into this horrifying new law
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed a massive new anti-abortion bill, House Enrolled Act 1337, into law on Thursday. Among other things, it bans abortions for reasons of genetic anomaly and requires all fetal remains to be cremated or buried, even if they come from a miscarriage
posted by homunculus at 5:54 PM on March 27, 2016


Among other things, it bans abortions for reasons of genetic anomaly and requires all fetal remains to be cremated or buried, even if they come from a miscarriage
I mean, these people just really have no idea about basic anatomy, do they?

Many, many women miscarry before they even know they're pregnant. Basically, in Indiana it's a crime to flush the toilet if your period is a little overdue.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:21 PM on March 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


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