How to Develop Women’s Health App

Women’s health has been full of myths and taboos for hundreds of years, and unfortunately, many still believe in them.

That is all considering that each woman’s health itself is of course individual and requires a personal approach. These are some of the many reasons why FemTech apps are now a whole separate industry and help women all over the world.

In fact, the industry of women’s health apps is projected to have an average annual growth of 18,9% between 2021 and 2026. This shows that the demand for such apps is only growing, and the market still has a lot of niches.

Such a demand makes perfect sense, too — apps can make it significantly easier for women to track their health, as well as for healthcare workers to provide better services to help millions of women:

• Have a regular overview of their menstrual cycle.
• Control pregnancies and birth control taking.
• Manage the treatment of diseases.
• Support the lives of women with breast cancer & others.

So, if you’d like to contribute to helping women control their health by developing an app, modify or improve your existing solution, or simply learn more about it — welcome!

✅ Top Things Worth Attention When Developing Women’s Health App

In this section, we’ll cover how to make sure that user data is highly protected and which processes you can automate with an app. Additionally, we’ll give you some advice on how you can make your app more user-friendly, and how planning can save you time & money.

Data Security

High-level data security is a must-have for apps that work with sensitive user data due to several reasons:

1. Data leaks & frauds have become more technologically advanced — even though security levels constantly improve, hackers still find breaches in systems.
2. Medical apps work with highly sensitive data; thus, leaking can not only be harmful to one’s feeling of privacy but can cause psychosomatic damage & stress as well.

Not to mention that some users may not want to share their health information like menstrual cycle details or symptoms in the app. So, to make them feel safe, you should make sure, as well as let them know that their information is secure and private.

You can use different features to enable security:

• Multi-factor authentication. That may include password, security token, one-time passcode, phone call verification, personal security questions as well as biometric features: fingerprinting, face ID verification or voice recognition.
• End-to-end encryption. It’s a type of encryption where only the sender and the recipient are able to access messages.
• Device fingerprinting, which is used to identify users’ devices’ operating systems, IP addresses, location, time, screen size, etc. Then, if any of these parameters change, users get notified.
• Real-time fraud notifications.

Another essential thing needed to protect user data and enable security is regulatory compliance. However, the number & types of regulations you need to comply with highly depend on the country of your registration and where your users generally come from.

Most apps need to comply with GDPR, HIPAA, and PIPEDA:

• GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is a key data privacy EU law that covers businesses registered in the European Union as those that work with EU citizens’ data.
• HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) — a US federal law that determines national health-related data protection standards.
• PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) is a data privacy law in Canada that contains a security framework for organizations.

We won’t go into much detail since there’s an informative guide on our blog, dedicated to:

• Whether or not you need to comply with any of these regulations.
• What will happen if you violate them.
• All details regarding being compliant.

Workflow Automation

Women’s health tracking apps are really beneficial in terms of automating certain aspects of the workflow.

For offline businesses, women’s health apps are really beneficial in terms of automating certain aspects of the workflow. For example, registering patients or booking appointments.

If you start an online business, you simply won’t have to organize these parts, which will make the whole process more flawless.

To be more specific, you can automate these parts of the workflow:

• Interviewing patients before their appointments.
• Processing payments.
• Clarifying prescriptions. If a patient forgets how, what, and/or when to do something, they can simply double-check in the app.

Mono- & Multifunctionality

There are a bunch of apps targeted at different health aspects from menstrual cycle tracking to breast cancer control, etc., that can be organized in 2 ways:

• Specializing in only one area of women’s health.
• Offering features for various purposes combined.

Some existing solutions that offer features for multiple aspects of women’s health don’t allow using them simultaneously — users have to switch modes which isn’t that convenient and user-friendly.

Our recommendation is the following: If you want to add features for several women’s health aspects, make them accessible within one mode but on different screens so the app isn’t too “bulky.”

For this purpose, you should think out the app’s structure well in advance.

Additionally, it’s reasonable to tell your developers about all of your plans in advance, too. If they know what structure you want in the beginning, they’ll be able to help you define a cost-saving and time-efficient way to meet your needs.

Educational Content

The women’s health industry is full of distorted and harmful facts that many people still believe to be true. To prevent damage due to unawareness and increase the general level of knowledge, it might be a great idea to provide a lot of educational content and place links to reliable sources of relevant information in your app.

Such content may include:

• Articles.
• Visual content — explanatory videos, pictures, anatomical reviews, etc.
• Audios.
• Check-lists.
• Nutrition plans. For example, you can add products that one should and shouldn’t eat during menstruation or ovulation.

Similar information is available on many apps, however, the importance of this information isn’t explained. To make sure that the content actually contributes to more awareness, we recommend:

• Placing the information on the main screen.
• Sending push notifications and reminders (while users are on the app as well).
• Creating achievements or offering rewards (in-app points, badges, merch, etc.) for using and engaging with educational content, etc.

For example, Flo sometimes sends its audience messages and reminders such as “Now is the best time of your cycle. It’s your time to shine” while they’re using the app. With such messages, they instantly offer their audience to learn more about the topic and why certain things are the way they are.

After clicking on the “Learn more” button, they take the users to a sort of a chat with a medical specialist who then shares all the information with explanations, myth-busting, and advice on the topic.

⚙️ Top Features of a Women’s Health Tracking App

In this section, we’ll review the main features that you can add to your app.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to include all the features in one app — for your particular use case, you might just need a couple.

# 1: Sign Up & Profiles 🔐

The sign-up process should be easy & fast so that the process isn’t “repellant.” At the very beginning, you can either ask for no information at all or for something common like email and/or phone number and name.

Even though that should be enough for people to start using your app, you’ll most likely have to ask for more details later when filling in a medical profile.

It might be a great idea to offer Social Sign Up, so letting people sign up with Apple ID or a Google account to save users’ time and use it as an additional marketing tool.

Although it’s not likely that a lot of people will feel comfortable sharing their experience on your app since the topics might be too personal, those who will can greatly contribute to spreading awareness.

# 2: Medical Profile 📝

This feature can vary depending on the type of your app. However, there’s certain information that you might ask everyone to fill in on their medical profile like age, weight/height, whether or not they’re on birth control, etc., no matter their particular use case.

It might also be a good idea to ask for users’ gender/pronouns. Even though people might actually use your app because of physical needs, they might not identify as a woman. So, to create a personal user experience and a friendly, trustworthy and safe space, you can take that into account as well.

Some information is essential, however, you should make the fill-in optional. Even if users won’t be able to get all proper services, the choice should be left up to them because some of them may feel too sensitive or self-conscious and need time to be able to share such info on your app.

# 3: Well-Being & Symptom Check-Ups 📲

To enable the main benefit of a regular check-up of a woman’s health, you should add daily well-being and symptom check-ups to your app.

At first, you can ask about users’ current mood, how much sleep they got today, libido, discharge, any symptoms, etc.

To better address each user, you can offer to add customized questions to daily check-ups. Thus, you’ll be able to provide a personalized experience, as well as cover the needs of all users. It might be a good idea to store the check-ups to be able to track changes, dynamics, general tendencies, etc.

For the same purpose, you can add a separate bar for notes and comments to cover some symptoms that aren’t in the questions or need some specifications.

# 4: Menstrual Cycle Tracking ⭕

Many women’s health tracking apps are dedicated to tracking menstrual cycles. The functionality can include:

• Menstrual cycle tracking & prediction.
• PMS symptom tracking.
• Ovulation calculation.
• Graphs (length of cycle, length & intensity of the period itself, etc.).

Additionally, you can add a calendar feature for women to visualize cycle phases, conveniently track the duration of each cycle, and try to predict each phase as well as determine when things go off.

# 5: Pregnancy Control 👶

The Pregnancy Profile feature in your app can include info like gestational age, resumable birth date, etc.

Since experience with pregnancy is as beautiful as it is painful for many women, it’s important to allow them to picture and remember its pleasant moments. Think about adding a journal for positive moments (baby’s first kick, for example).

You can also add another journal for medical purposes only. There, pregnant women can write down body changes, their emotional state, any concerns that might come up, and other health changes.

Moreover, you can add:

• Lists with meal recipes.
• Lists with medications that aren’t allowed during pregnancy & the risks/side-effects of taking them.
• Physical exercise for pregnant women & others.

# 6: Birth Control Tracking 💊

To cover the needs of those who use hormonal birth control methods, you can add a tracking feature since, normally, finding suitable hormonal contraception is a long & delicate process.

The functionality may include:

• Reminders to take birth control pills.
• Side-effect checkers — rashes, changes in discharge, pains, etc.
• A screen for notes, etc.

Furthermore, you can allow customizable checkers to cover those who use less widely used birth control methods like IUDs, contraceptive implants, patches, etc.

# 7: Breast Health Control 📊

Since breast health is a really important part of women’s health, you can add features for its control.

Its functionality can consist of:

• Breast exams and uploads of ultrasound results.
• A change tracker: breast lumps, pains, etc.
• Self-examination guides.
• Cancer prevention and control, etc.

Additionally, you can ingrate a certain AI software into your app for it to analyze data and make assumptions on whether or not something is off, recommend making doctor appointments, etc.

# 8: Forums 💬

To form a community around your app, you can create forums on various social media and online platforms. That can help you build a trusting and friendly relationship with your audience.

However, these forums should be regulated and curated by medical specialists so users don’t give harmful advice.

Additionally, you can add a Bad Word Filter feature so there is no bullying, swear words, provocative phrases, etc. To enable such, you can use such APIs as Microsoft Azure Content Moderato, Perspective, etc.

It might also be a good idea to organize educational lectures, speeches, or discussions to increase awareness right on these forums.

# 9: Urgent Help 📞

To help women in emergency cases like sudden or premature labor, pains during pregnancy, severe vaginal bleeding, and other urgent health issues that require immediate medical help, you can place an “Urgent help” button somewhere on the screen, add a separate screen for all the contact information, and offer users to upload the contacts to their phone contacts list.

# 10: Push Notifications 🔔

Push notifications can be really useful in a variety of ways if organized correctly.

You can add push notifications to:

• Remind users to do daily check-ups.
• Send ill reminders.
• Send personalized offers.
• Retarget audience.
• Inform users about upcoming events like lectures & others.

# 11: 3rd-Party Integrations 🤖

If you’d like to enable physical indicators measuring (heart rate, activities like daily steps or running, weight) and transfer the data into your app, you can offer users to connect their BLE devices (fitness bands, smart scales, etc.) to the app.

Such a connection can be done by using an API like HealthKit from Apple. Surely, there are certain devices designed for women’s health specifically.

For instance, there’s Mira Fertility Tracker that shows women their hormonal readings and predicts ovulation. A similar concept presents the Prima-Temp biosensor.

At Stormotion, we have experience in enabling data transactions from cadence & heart rate sensors into the Platoon Fit app. It’s a fitness project that pays special attention to health monitoring gadgets.

If you’d like to learn more about it, feel free to read the case study on our website:

Additionally, there’s a bunch of other Tech Stack that you can potentially use for your women's health app:

• Calendar APIs: Google Calendar, Nylas, Zoho, etc.
• Push notification APIs: OneSignal or Pusher.
• Chat APIs: Sendbird, Stream, Vonage, etc.
• Video session APIs: Agora, Twilio, etc.

💰 What Affects Women Health Tracking App Development Costs

To be able to properly set a budget for your project, it’s important to make cost predictions, which can be quite a challenge since each case is unique and you can’t know all the pitfalls that await you and will require financial resources.

Nevertheless, you should take certain aspects of the process into account since they’ll definitely impact the costs:

1. Number & complexity of features.
2. The technology of development used.
3. Third-party integrations (if you want there to be any).
4. The hourly rate of your development team.

💡 Takeaways: Female Health Tracking App

Women’s health apps cover a lot of health aspects and are of good use for women on a daily basis. However, medical attention and regular check-ups at the doctor's office are essential.

Therefore, the app you develop can be presented rather as a helpful part of one’s healthcare routine that allows tracking and predicting periods to be more prepared, capturing body changes to describe them to a doctor in detail, and so on.

Our team would like to also thank you for being willing to contribute to this industry since it has been taboo for too many centuries, and we need to try to make the life of women easier & safer!

If you need any help with the development, have questions left or want to contact us for any other reason, feel free to reach out. We’d be happy to help you!