Menstruation. If you’re a male reader, this fun, biological side-effect to having two X chromosomes has, at one point or another, befallen your wife, mother, sister, and daughter for the majority of their lives. I’m going to go out on a limb here by assuming this isn’t something you often talk about, especially in the cold, white-walled engineering space you occupy.
But menstruation, especially for newbies to the reproductive scene, can be an embarrassing, even shameful experience. Navigating puberty is confusing enough—let alone wondering if you kept your tampon in too long and good God I don’t want to stand up because what do my white pants look like? But beyond the social dimensions to having an imploding uterus, changing tampons (which 70 percent of women use) too infrequently can lead to serious medical conditions like toxic shock syndrome.
But one new startup is stepping in to change all that (or at least start a conversation regarding the stigma) with a device that attaches a Bluetooth sensor to a traditional tampon—a “smart tampon,” if you will—called my.Flow. The device, which monitors its user’s flow in real-time, corresponds to a smartphone app that alerts women when their tampon is saturated and a visit to the bathroom is in order, which not only spares them any potential embarrassment, but prevents excessive waste should the hygiene product be removed prematurely. Women can also use the app to track their cycles from month-to-month.
Amanda Brief, the company’s founder, came up with the idea for the device at a wearables project at the University of California, Berkeley. “With this device,” the website states, “we want to empower anyone experiencing a period with knowledge and confidence about their bodies, from the minute-ly to the monthly level, with the intention of changing the nature of the topic of the period.”
That being said, there are some, shall we say, strings attached to the current model: the tampon integrates a long, insulated string that connects to a key fob-sized Bluetooth sensor that clips on to a woman’s waistband. (Speaking as a woman, I’m not sure how I’d feel getting that up close and personal with electronics.) But that aside, my.Flow is simply the first iteration of a device that, on a larger scale, empowers women to manage their monthly visitor in a smarter, less embarrassing and medically safe way—which means the technology can only develop with time.
I think that’s something we can all get behind.