From naming cervical fluid to ditching tampons and the pill; Kindara highlights what health trends and innovations they predict will occur for women next year.
Boulder, CO. – December 3, 2015 – Kindara, a women's health company that created the progressive Kindara Fertility Tracker app in addition to Wink, a sleek connected fertility thermometer to help women conceive or avoid pregnancy naturally, announced its predictions for women’s health in 2016 and beyond. Over the past few years, increased interest in this field has put pressure on businesses to expand and improve the products and services available to women. In 2016, we will see breakthroughs and discoveries as women’s reproductive health becomes a less taboo and better understood hot topic.
“Women’s health has finally emerged from the shadows to take it’s rightful place as a market deserving of investment, ” said Will Sacks, CEO and Co-founder of Kindara. “2016 is going to be an explosive year for women’s health companies. Women will continue to demand more out of their health products, and companies will need to innovate or they will be left behind.”
Kindara’s top five women’s health predictions include:
In 2016, cervical fluid - the female counterpart to semen, charged with shuttling sperm towards the egg - will get a name. The best contender is “Cerviva,” a beautiful name for arguably the most important substance on earth for conception - without it the human race would be shortly extinct. Each substance in the human body plays an important function in health, and as such, each bodily fluid has been given a name to acknowledge its importance - not just a description. Think about it: we say 'saliva,' not mouth mucus, and 'semen,' not testicle fluid. However, cervical fluid is the only substance the body produces that doesn’t have an official name. In 2016, this will change, and cervical fluid will start to be called “Cerviva.”
12 million women in the United States take the hormonal contraception know as “the pill” everyday—but few know how this drug works or the potential side effects. Contrary to cultural myth, the birth control pill impacts many organs and functions of the body, yet most women do not even think of it as a drug. However, through growing reports of negative side effects and increasing number of alternatives, women will begin to take back control of their cycles, and switch to a natural method of birth control, like the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM). FAM is form of natural birth control that is 99.6% effective, based on a specific set of scientific principles used to measure and track a woman’s fertile and infertile times in their cycle.
Women’s health apps comprise a booming niche of the health app market. There are apps to chart your fertility, suggest baby names, support your prenatal fitness, and learn about the development of the baby. According to a study done by Citrix, 47 percent of people using mobile health apps are using a pregnancy related application. In 2016, we will continue to see an increase in the percentage of women using mobile apps to conceive and maintain healthy pregnancies.
Next year, tampon sales will take a big hit as menstrual cups grow in popularity. While awareness has been growing for reusable menstrual products - namely DivaCup, Lunette, and Mooncups - recent reports have shown that tampons and pads carry greater risk than we thought. This past year has seen an increase in the number of women who are already demanding more sustainable, safe options. Beyond the potential toxins tampons or pads can carry, they also take over five hundred years to biodegrade, and according to the National Women's Health Network, approximately twelve billion pads and 7 million tampons end up in landfills each year. Additionally, there are large health benefits to tracking period flow, a fact that is widely unknown by most women. The amount of blood and tissue shed can signify problems like uterine fibroids or premature ovarian failure, and since pads and tampons absorb fluid, they can obscure gradual increases or decreases in volume, which in turn might delay diagnosis. With this growing awareness women are going to ditch pads and tampons in favor of menstrual cups. Look out Tampax!
In 2016, we will see women steering away from doctor’s offices and into their smartphones - largely due to the multitude of digital health tools that are available. In fact, according to a recent study, two-thirds of women said they would use a mobile app to manage health-related issues. With the wealth of data and peer-to-peer communities now available, mobile apps are quickly becoming the primary source for women to manage treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of health conditions. Specifically, women's health apps have some of the highest numbers of subscribers of all health apps. As user trust continues to grow for these apps, collaborations that bring together activity tracking, period tracking, weight and diet tracking will merge, with powerful overall health results. More than ever Doctors will need to connect in with the app ecosystem or be left behind.
Since 2012, Kindara has helped over a million women better understand their bodies, aided 75,000+ women in conception, and enabled a collective total of 300,000 Pill-free, pregnancy-free cycles for those trying to avoid pregnancy. Women enter nearly a million data points into the Kindara app each week.
For more information about Kindara, visit: https://www.kindara.com.
About Kindara: Kindara is devoted to giving women the knowledge, support, and tools to understand their health and meet their fertility goals. Founded by Kati Bicknell and Will Sacks, Kindara designs products that delight women and improve their lives. Kindara Fertility Tracker for iPhone and Android, is a top rated fertility app, helping hundreds of thousands of women get pregnant faster, avoid pregnancy naturally, and understand their bodies. Wink by Kindara is an advanced basal thermometer that syncs with Kindara apps to provide a seamless fertility management experience.
