Relationships February 13, 2017
You may have thought that you’re as high tech as you can get. You have the latest iPhone, your sensor-packed sleepwear makes sure you’re getting eight hours of sleep every night and, thanks to your new Fitbit, you know exactly how many steps you take every day. In 2017, though, no part of your life is safe from getting “smart-ified” – and that includes your reproductive health. That’s right. Smart tampons are about to arrive.
At first glance, smart tampons might sound too ridiculous to believe. After all, sensors in your night gown are one thing. In your underwear? Now, that seems to be crossing a line. However, several companies are developing smart tampons that will transform your menstrual cycle – and your sexual safety.
If you ever took a health class in high school (or actually read the fine print of the products you buy), you’ve probably heard of toxic shock syndrome. If you need a refresher, TSS is a potentially fatal condition caused by bacteria that can be found in tampons. Although TSS is much less common today than in previous years, it still happens – and My.Flow’s new smart tampon will try to bring the number down to zero when released later this year. How exactly will it work? Basically, My.Flow features tampons with an extra long string that attaches to a Bluetooth sensor you can clip to your belt.
My.Flow definitely won’t be fashionable – or cheap, considering the sensor will reportedly cost around $50 and the tampons a few dollars more than Tampax or Playtex. However, My.Flow will be able to alert your smartphone app when you need to change tampons and can be used to track when your period starts and stops, as well as what days your flow is the heaviest.
That’s not the only “smart tampon” scheduled to hit stores sometime this year, though. In 2014, Ridhi Tariyal and Stephen Gire created a startup called NextGen Jane to develop a tampon that women could use to check their reproductive health. While the exact technology of their tampon hasn’t been revealed, its basic foundation is simple – it gives women the power to test their own menstrual blood for markers of reproductive health.
One of the obvious benefits of a smart tampon would be women’s ability to check for sexually-transmitted diseases. Instead of having to wait for a doctor’s appointment, women can have monthly check-ups in the comfort of their own home. However, Tariyal’s invention could also help with fertility.
From 2000 to 2014, the number of women over the age of 35 trying to get pregnant increased by 23 percent. Since it is often harder for older women to conceive, this means more women than ever need access to information about their own fertility. Tariyal’s smart tampon hopes to help by tracking a woman’s ovarian reserve, or the number of eggs she has left. In the past, doctors wouldn’t share this information unless a woman tried to get pregnant and failed. In the near future, the power of making an informed decision to wait to have children could be in women’s hands … or, at the very least, in the computer of their smart tampon.
However, more changes need to be made than “smart-ifying” our tampons to improve women’s reproductive health this year. Instead, we need cultural changes that will entirely transform people’s mindset about menstruation.
It’s true that the creators of both smart tampons have bigger goals than just improving tampons’ functionality for women. My.Flow also hopes to normalize periods, with founder Amanda Brief explaining that the device’s purple color was inspired by the color of menstrual blood. This honest representation of bodily functions is a step in the right direction compared to the sterile blue liquid seen in maxipad commercials. As for Tariyal, her entire project is based on the belief that women should be “empowered to track their own health at a granular level.”
However, despite the technological advancements in menstrual-related products, society’s view of menstruation has remained dismal throughout history. ENTITY recently talked with Dr. Lewis Wall, President of Dignity Period, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering and educating women in Ethiopia, on the topic of menstruation. According to Dr. Wall, menstruation has been viewed as “abnormal” throughout history, mainly due to lack of biological understanding. In fact, “Many ritual taboos (such as the belief that menstruating women should not enter a church or a mosque) go back to those times when what was actually happening was not understood and reflect ancient and outmoded beliefs about biology.”
Today, many women around the world still struggle against the stigma of menstruation. For example, women in poor countries like Ethiopia often lack access to pads, tampons or similar items, and places to change and dispose of these materials. These missing materials “[are] not only psychosocially damaging to girls’ self-image and dignity, but also often keep them from attending school,” explains Dr. Wall. This can lead to higher drop-out rates and fewer economic prospects for women, creating a cycle of a lack of resources and skills.
If you’re reading this article while living in America or Europe, such struggles may sound medieval – but even women in “modernized” countries are still battling stigmatization. Forty states in the U.S. tax menstrual products anywhere from four to ten percent. Of the ten that don’t tax tampons, five have no sales tax at all. As Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, a vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law put it: “Anyone who doesn’t think the tampon tax is a problem either isn’t a woman or hasn’t been poor.”
Women are even shamed from speaking about their periods – which, as Dr. Wall says, “is a normal biological process” – on their own social media accounts and in women’s magazines. Instagram removed an artist’s menstruation-themed photos twice (though the site later claimed they were removed “by accident”). And a photo series of menstrual blood published on Cosmopolitan was deemed “not suitable for work,” according to poet and writer Erika L Sanchez.
The truth is, we need more than just digitized tampons. We need societal respect and understanding that monthly bleeding is a normal part of every woman’s lives – and we shouldn’t have to hide it or pay extra for any required supplies.
Because, yes, having the ability to monitor our own reproductive health is important. Yes, being able to know when your tampon is full – and when we may be dangerously close to ruining our favorite pair of white jeans – would be convenient. But you know what an even more modern and empowered update would be? The realization that, as Dr. Wall says, “Adequate menstrual hygiene management should be regarded as a woman’s right.”
Any fancy gizmos that go along with that are just a bonus.
