﻿Why does my.Flow exist?

Why does my.Flow exist?

6/13/2016

This is one of the questions that we sometimes get here at my.Flow, and it has come up in a few of the many news outlets writing about us. We’ve been told by a lot of men, and some women, that monitoring the period is unnecessary. If you’ve been following our media coverage, you’ve probably seen a few articles like the one in Engadget, which asked “Who needs a smart tampon when you have common sense?” So who needs my.Flow? Well, a lot of people.

We all know that some women have more regular cycles than others, and that some have better or worse period experiences. When we surveyed hundreds of women from all over the world, we found a significant correlation (p<0.05) between unpredictability of a respondent's cycle and feelings of anxiety and frustration about their period. This translates to tens of millions of women in the US alone who experience menstrual anxiety because of the unpredictability of their natural rhythm. Even if you have a pretty regular cycle, there are always days or weeks where your body decides to throw you a curveball.

And this doesn’t even account for the 2 million women that visit a doctor for Abnormal Uterine Bleeding (AUB) every year, a condition that over 30% of women in the US report having suffered from during their lives. my.Flow will ensure that, no matter what your period looks like, you can always stay in touch with it.

We’re also incredibly excited to help the 15 million young women in the US who are just starting to learn about menstrual products, and their own cycles. my.Flow could help them get at the best parts of that experience, while cutting out a lot of the anxiety and uncertainty that comes with adolescence. I think we can all agree that middle school is a hard enough time, and having to worry about all the changes in your body makes it even harder. We all know that knowledge is power. At my.Flow, we want to give these girls power over their bodies at a time when many feel powerless.

There are women who have told us they don’t need anything except their own common sense to monitor their tampon status, or that they can feel when their tampon is full. That’s great! We couldn’t be happier for these women; a regular cycle is a great thing. However, not everyone is so lucky. There are a lot of women out there who can benefit from products addressing their menstrual needs. In the last few years, we’ve seen a long-overdue boom in menstrual innovation, with products from absorbent underwear, to tampons that let you skip the needle by providing blood samples. We’re proud to stand side by side with these products, and to offer our own contribution: insight that empowers. my.Flow allows users of the USA’s number one period solution to know their flow on a level never before seen.

After all, we’re now buying wearables that track everything from sleep and exercise to posture and eye movement. We want to allow menstruators to do the same for one of the central parts of their health.

2 Comments

Jane Doe

6/14/2016 04:51:32 pm

1. I'd like more details on this survey you did of "hundreds of women all over the world". I have talked about this product to so many women so far, just to gauge if I'm the unreasonable one or not, and not a single woman I have talked to has responded positively to the fact this product even exists, let alone expressed any interest in actually using it.
2. You cite wearables that give users more information on their bodies' day-to-day activities. It hasn't been proven that knowing all this information has actually reduced anxiety in their users. In fact, I know of many ppl who have gotten sleep trackers that only make their insomnia worse because now they know they aren't sleeping. Though women may experience some anxiety around their periods, I know I certainly did especially since mine was irregular for years, it's unclear if having this product would do anything to reduce that anxiety without introducing even more anxiety.
3. I am also unclear on how this product would help me deal with "curveballs" in my cycle. Would I have to keep it in all the time? Why not just use a pad?
4. Please don't make this a man vs. woman thing. There are certainly issues that pit men against women, but frankly, this product sounds pretty unnecessary, and the rhetoric around selling it somewhat exploitative, to most women.

Team my.Flow link

6/15/2016 09:53:30 pm

Hi Jane!

Thank you for your comment. We're here to speak to the points you raised.

1. We've talked to many women who are extremely excited about our product and eager for its release, and more are contacting us every week. We will be sharing some of their feedback with their permission, and publishing the results of the survey we took, but there's some information in it that could potentially identify our respondents. Once we find a way to screen this information out, we will make the results public.

2. We do discuss a number of wearables, but we are (as far as we know) the only one of these whose primary purpose is to reduce anxiety and other negative emotions through the information provided. We understand that my.Flow is not for everyone, and we encourage you not to buy it if you think it would make you more anxious! But we have received a lot of positive feedback from people who think that our tampon monitor would make a huge and beneficial difference in their lives, including some who have requested to test the device. It may not be for everyone, but we really look forward to helping some.

3. Good question. my.Flow makes sure that, whenever you're using it, you can track your flow. But most tampon users don't always have a tampon in, which means there will be times when you don't have that knowledge. If you're spotting at the beginning or end of your period, or in between periods, you might want to use, or supplement with, a pad. my.Flow is another tool in the toolkit of menstrual products that allow users to improve their period experience: we don't want to replace pads, or whatever else you're comfortable using. We're sure that some people will want to use my.Flow for their entire period, and some will only want to use it on their heaviest or busiest days. We want to give you the tools to track your flow; their frequency of use is up to you.

4. When you talk about 'a man vs woman thing,' are you referring to our words in the first paragraph? As we said before, this product is not for everyone - not even all women. There are a lot of menstruators who won't want to track their flow like this, but there are also many who do, and who have told us so. We don't believe it is exploitative to bring that information to light.

We are always happy to hear from our community, and to engage in discussion about our product. It's very important to us that we make a product that can improve the period experience, at least for some. If you'd like to contact us directly to chat more, feel free to email us at founders@trackmyflow.com.

Best,
Team my.Flow

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