Why Period Tracking Apps are NOT Great for Girls (and a better alternative)

by Jan 23, 2025Her Moods & Mind

‘From first periods through the fertility gamut and into the sputtering flow of menopause, period tracking is important for many health and personal reasons. Today, it’s as easy as opening an app and selecting the number of blood drops on the right day to trigger a notification telling you when to stock up on tampons and chocolate – or warn your family to tread lightly – or let you know that something’s “off” you should call your doctor. 

So why shouldn’t a young girl new to periods, join the 50 million+ using period tracking apps? 

Fertility-Centric.
The most popular period tracking apps are centered around getting or not getting pregnant by predicting ovulation. Some have been developed by companies that sell ovulation detector kits or paired devices to collect biometric data like temperature, sleep and heart rate to boost the effectiveness of conception or contraception goals. It’s also common for these apps to prompt her to record sexual activity, send her notifications about her fertile time, and offer tips for keeping the bedroom frisky and fun. 

Although some offer additional educational content, most of the education is around TTC (trying to conceive), contraception, or sexual health. Girls can certainly turn off notifications and tailor the content to be less fertility-focused, but none of these apps are thinking about helping young girls adjust to periods or understand their changing body.

Adult Focused.
If she just wants to know when to expect her next period, apps can confuse her or create anxiety because they are based on adult menstrual cycles, not adolescents. Most apps continue to suggest that the “normal” menstrual cycle is consistently 28 days with little variation from cycle to cycle – when that’s just baloney. Only about 15% of women actually have 28 day cycles, and most have variation from cycle to cycle of up to 5 days. For teens, normal cycle lengths are 21-45 days, and the cycle to cycle variation is even greater. There’s no need to use any app that can raise her anxiety or make her doubt her own body rather than the app’s accuracy. 

On a more positive note, many of the apps have space for noting common (constipation, acne, headaches, mood shifts) or individualized (asthma attacks, Crohns flares) symptoms. Symptom tracking can help users recognize symptom patterns or identify when personal health conditions are affected by the menstrual cycle (which happens a lot).

Her Privacy
Period trackers are a profitable industry and they collect highly personal health information from millions of users. With recent criminalization of abortion in many states, there are legitimate concerns about how menstrual cycle data may be used or shared.

Although the apps collect private health data, the companies that own them are not bound by HIPPA or healthcare legislation, but only by the app store that hosts them. So the app companies decide for themselves how they will handle your data. No laws prohibit them from sharing user information with advertisers, insurance companies, law enforcement, or any rando. So, for now, period tracking apps may not be a safe or trusted place for keeping up with her menstrual cycle or other sensitive health data.

Then what’s a girl to do?

For my adolescent patients, I always recommend an old-school menstrual calendar, like this one we make available through Girlology. 

It’s a simple, notecard sized calendar that allows a full year of tracking and provides a visual representation of emerging patterns (which SHOULD start to happen after her first 3 periods). 

For me (as a gynecologist) it’s incredibly helpful as a diagnostic tool for identifying irregular patterns, excessive flow, or troublesome symptoms.

It’s also preferable (to me and my patients) to having her hand over her phone so I can swipe through whichever app she’s using to search for the data I really need. 

As your daughter reaches that milestone of menarche (that’s the medical term for her first period), you can download our menstrual calendar HERE. 

 

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