Fitbit has launched it’s new “female health tracking” feature, which allows users to log their menstrual cycles. “Starting this month, Fitbit users who have identified themselves as female in their profile will receive a notification that female health tracking is available, and they can opt-in,” reports the Verge. Never mind that not all period-havers are women and not all women have periods—but I guess we’re supposed to be grateful to have periods acknowledged at all. (It took Apple a year to add menstruation to its extensive collection of health tracking metrics, after all.)
The new feature is available on Fitbit’s iOS and Windows apps, as well as the company’s two smartwatches, Iconic and Verse. Users can track their periods, as well as associated symptoms—from acne to breast tenderness—blood flow, and discharge. Since I guess normal bodily functions are gross, the feature uses adorable little icons that rescue us from the disgusting, abject realities of our uterus-having bodies. “Flow” is tracked with droplets of pretty-princess pink blood. “Fluids” are recorded with similarly cutesy illustrations, including a piece of honeycomb for “sticky” and a magnifying glass for “unusual.”
Like most period-tracking apps—a market that has exploded in recent years—it offers up predictions on when a user’s period is expected, as well as an estimated fertile window (which, word of caution, can be highly unreliable for pregnancy prevention). The one thing that sets this feature apart is that it’s integrated with all of the other information tracked by Fitbit, like sleep and activity levels. As a Fitbit blog post puts it, “By having all of your health and fitness information in one place and looking at your data over time, you can better understand connections between your activity, sleep, and cycle symptoms.” Or you can use it to draw spurious, baseless conclusions—user’s choice!