How to Create a Women's Health Tracking App: Some Practical Advice

Published: January 24, 2024

19 min read

Understanding women's health tracking app development is crucial, as 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 separate industry and help women all over the world.

An example in women health tracking app development

When building a women's health app for period tracking, ovulation and fertility period, etc., it’s important to take consultations with medical professionals (image by Nasir Uddin)

A Precedence Research study states that the women's health app market, valued at USD 2.50 billion in 2022, is expected to reach USD 15.16 billion by 2032. This market is poised to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 19.80% from 2023 to 2032. This growing demand highlights the opportunity to make apps for women's health, tapping into various unexplored niches.

The growth of the women's health app market, including healthcare solutions, is driven by several key factors:

  • Increased internet penetration and smartphone adoption are leading to higher demand for apps that assist with female health issues, such as ovulation tracking, weight management, and menstrual cycles.
  • Rising disposable income among women, coupled with their growing participation in the workforce, is boosting the use of health apps globally. These apps are increasingly used for health monitoring, which is beneficial for both users and healthcare facilities.
  • Femtech market is also being propelled by a heightened awareness of health and fitness apps, including those to develop a mobile app for yoga, which can help in identifying and managing various female body problems, alongside a surge in women's employment, changing lifestyles, and a focus on wellness.

Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital technology in health apps, with a reported 40% increase in usage during the pandemic.

The ongoing advancements in technologies like AI and machine learning, particularly in the realm of digital clinics, are expected further to enhance the efficiency and personalization of female health tracking apps, contributing to market growth.

So, if you're interested in contributing to the advancement of women's health through how to develop an app for women's health, whether it involves enhancing an existing solution or gaining more insights, you are warmly 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. In the realm of women's health tracking app development, we'll offer advice on making your app more user-friendly and how planning can save you time & money.

Data Security

High-level data security, ensuring data collected is kept confidential
is crucial, whether you're working on women's health apps or looking to develop a mental health app, especially since both deal with sensitive user data due to several reasons:

  • Data leaks & frauds have become more technologically advanced — even though security levels constantly improve, hackers still find breaches in systems.
  • Medical care 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.

This is a crucial consideration when starting a women's health tracking app, as some users may be hesitant to share sensitive health information like menstrual cycle details, unless they are assured their health data is confidential and protected. 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.
The female health app seamlessly connects users with essential medical resources, facilitating easy access to hospital services for comprehensive healthcare management.

A women’s health tracking app development should be secure yet easily accessible to women (image by Karolina Olejniczak)

Regulatory compliance, particularly adherence to data protection regulations, is another essential aspect to consider as you develop a women's health tracking application, ensuring user data protection and security. 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.

Read Also:

How to Make Sure Your App or Website is HIPAA, PIPEDA & GDPR Compliant

Workflow Automation

Women’s health tracking apps, especially those offering AI-generated health tips, are beneficial in terms of automating certain aspects of the workflow.

For offline businesses, it's beneficial to build women's health applications that can also track changes in body shape, thereby automating certain aspects of the workflow. For example, registering patients or booking appointments.

If you start an online business with mHealth applications, you won’t have to organize these parts, making the process more efficient.

The period tracker app offers virtual monitoring, allowing users to track their menstrual cycles and receive insights for better reproductive health management

Period tracking app development can help women share details with their doctors and track health issues timely (image by Nasir Uddin)

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

  • Interviewing patients before their appointments.
  • Processing payments.
  • Clarifying prescriptions and administering medication. 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.
An example of pregnancy apps.

In pregnancy tracking app development, additional features like a fertility calendar, general health tracker, body temperature monitoring, and blood pressure data can be integrated alongside period tracking. (image by Bettina Szekany)

Some existing femtech 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's challenges, especially for adolescent women, underscore the need for how to create a women's health tracker app that provides accurate and helpful information. To prevent damage due to unawareness and increase the general level of knowledge, much like when building a meditation app, 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.
Women health tracking apps can have various educational content apart from main features like period tracker

Women health tracking apps can have various educational content apart from main features like period tracker (image by SongSong)

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.

The development of a successful app in the realm of femtech or female technology, like a female health tracking app, requires a focus on robust data security, efficient workflow automation, thoughtful app functionality, and comprehensive educational content. Ensuring high-level data protection with features like multi-factor authentication and compliance with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PIPEDA is crucial. Automating processes like patient interviews and payments can enhance efficiency. Offering both specialized and multifunctional features, while maintaining user-friendliness, caters to diverse user needs. Finally, integrating educational content on various health topics is essential for user awareness and engagement. These elements together form the cornerstone of a reliable and effective women's health app.

⚙️ Top Features of a Women’s Health Tracking App

In this section, as part of understanding how to develop a healthcare app, we’ll review the main features that can be added to a women's health tracking 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.

Period tracking apps track each phase of the cycle but can as well include features of general health and wellness apps

Period tracking apps track each phase of the cycle but can as well include features of general health and wellness apps (image by Bettina Szekany)

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.

A detailed health profile is a must-have for period tracking apps, general health and fitness apps that are available in the market

A detailed health profile, including any chronic diseases, is essential for period tracking apps, offering the benefit of comprehensive health and fitness tracking available in the market (image by Arnas Goldberg)

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 enhance the diagnostics process, your app should include daily well-being and symptom check-ups, enabling regular women's health monitoring.

An example of a period and ovulation tracker app

A mobile app for women with a period tracker can include features for digital consultation with medical professionals, aiding in the timely diagnosis of health concerns (image by Tina Singh)

At first, you can ask about users’ current mood, how much sleep they got today, libido, discharge, morning sickness, symptoms like headaches, 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 health symptoms that aren’t in the questions or need some specifications. You can also add a symptom history – this useful feature assists users during medical appointments or for self-monitoring their well-being.

# 4: Menstrual Cycle Tracking ⭕

Many women’s health tracking apps, similar to diet planner app development, are dedicated to tracking menstrual cycles, which can also be instrumental in preventing accidental pregnancies. The functionality can include:

  • Menstrual cycle tracking & prediction.
  • PMS symptom tracking.
  • Ovulation calendar calculation.
  • Graphs (length of cycle, length & intensity of the period itself, etc.).
The fertility tracking feature in the female health app helps women monitor their most fertile days for better family planning.

Mobile apps for women like birth control app or fertility period tracker app can take app this as an example (image by Kimia Badiei)

Additionally, you can add a period 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 pregnancy tracking mobile app development is essential, supporting both those looking to get pregnant and those aiming to avoid accidental pregnancies. It can include info like gestational age, resumable birth date, etc.

An example of a pregnancy tracker app that contributes to women's sexual wellness.

In the women's health tracking app, a feature like Baby Feed Timer can be added to assist new mothers in managing their baby's feeding schedule effectively from the moment the baby arrives (image by Rudi Hartono)

Since the experience of 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 plans, including a healthy diet plan for pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers.
  • 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 as the process of finding suitable hormonal contraception is typically a lengthy and delicate one in the realm of how to create a women's health tracker app.

An app for women to have better control of their health

App design for women to have better control of their health (image by Zuzanna Cwiakala)

To cater to those looking to avoid pregnancy, the app can include a tracking feature for hormonal birth control methods, with reminders to take birth control pills and checkers for potential side effects.

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 📊

Breast health, especially for breast cancer survivors and for those who have developed breast cancer, is a crucial aspect of women’s health. You can add features for its control.

An app for women to have better control of their health

Essential features in an app designed for women to enhance their health management, including aspects related to diet, ensuring better control over their well-being (image by Maria Clara Irisarri)

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 integrate AI software into your app to help diagnose health issues by analyzing data and identifying abnormalities, determining whether or not something is off, and recommending making doctor appointments, etc.

Read also:

How to Create a Mental Health App and Put Psychological Therapist Into Pocket

# 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.

These apps can help to improve women’s lives

Including a forum feature in a women's health app provides a platform for users to discuss symptoms, promoting better control over their health. (image by HealthyWomen)

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, such as sudden or premature labor, and for arranging doctor's appointments in situations like severe vaginal bleeding and other urgent health issues, an 'Urgent help' button can be included in the app, 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.

The health tracker app for women provides a user-friendly interface to monitor and manage various aspects of female well-being, contributing to the enhancement of women's body image.

The female health app sends timely medicine notifications to help users stay on track with their wellness routines. (image by NOPE Creative)

You can add push notifications to:

  • Remind users to do daily check-ups.
  • Remind about taking medicines.
  • 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 health devices (fitness bands like Apple Watch, FitBit 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, which displays women's hormonal readings and provides ovulation predictions. 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:

Read Also:

Platoon Fit: Case Study

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

❓How to Build a Women’s Health Mobile Applications: Main Steps

In this segment, we will guide you through the intricacies of crafting a women health app, illuminating each crucial step in the process of how to create a female health tracking app.

# 1: Analyze Competitors

Look at female health exponents apps have already found. Learn that worked for them, as well as their successes and mistakes. At present, some major players are: Apple Inc. Clue (Clue) Fruit Body Co. Withings, Google Inc. Glow (Glow Inc.) Ovia Health("Vagaroist") Story Princess.

# 2: Identify Key Features

From the results of your market research, decide what functions your app should have. What needs to be done now is crystallizing the required features; choose those which best conform with your goals.

# 3: Monetization Strategies

Considering the opportunity to monetize women's health tracking apps, it all hinges on:

  • In-app purchases: Offer a premium version with features such as custom profiles, direct communication with healthcare professionals and a totally free experience without any ads.
  • In-app advertising: Add ads to your app. But keep in mind their frequency, where they're placed and how long they run in order to avoid user frustration.
  • Pay app: If your app provides an unmatchable service, consider offering it as a paying app - especially on iOS, where revenues of such kind are higher.

# 4: Assemble Your Team

To ensure the success of your initiative, hire skilled professionals for building a women's health application. Your team should include:

  • Business Analyst
  • Project Manager
  • Android/iOS App Developers
  • Backend and Frontend Developers
  • UI/UX Designer
  • Copywriter
  • Tester

# 5: Develop an MVP

Now that your team is in place, focus on developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) as part of the process on how to develop an app for women's health. This step allows you to study market interest without spending too much time and money on every detail and will eventually teach you what femtech product features are most important. Keep in mind that visual design is essential for getting user involvement.

Read also:

How to Enable Google Fit, Apple’s HealthKit, and Other Services to Share Data with Your App

# 6: Testing and Debugging

Since the target audience for such applications is women, it would be ideal if they were the ones to test the app, ideally, within the framework of actual circumstances:

  • How much time does loading or processing the data take?
  • Do people find the UI easy to use?

Such questions can contribute to the development of an ideal user experience. Furthermore, automated tests that developers conduct during the app development process will aid in finding issues and resolving them quickly.

# 7: Launch and Maintenance

After checking, release your Software on the App Store and Google Play. You could even get experts in to help with the submission process (which takes about a week typically). Once up and running, keep an eye on the app using the tools like Google Analytics and Mixpanel. Regular updates keep the app compatible with new mobile operating systems and add brand-new features.

💰 What Affects Women’s 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.

To better navigate the global femtech market, we have prepared a table outlining the minimum and maximum time and cost estimates for developing a women's health app 👇

Female Health Tracking App Development Costs
Using React Native

⚙️ Development stages & Features

⏳ Min Hours

⏱ Max Hours

🌍 Project Discovery

50

90

🎨 UX/UI design

30

55

🔐 Sign Up & Profiles

14

22

📝 Medical Profile

54

68

📲 Well-Being & Symptom Check-Ups

78

102

⭕ Menstrual Cycle Tracking

78

98

👶 Pregnancy Control

75

95

💊 Birth Control Tracking

50

70

📊 Breast Health Control

45

65

💬 Forums

22

34

📞 Urgent Help

34

68

🔔 Push Notifications

34

70

🤖 3rd-Party Integrations

54

66

🌐 Social Networking Elements

10

40

CMS (Content Management System) Development

110

140

🤓 QA and Testing

60

88

📱Release

10

16

🕔 Total hours

808

1187

💵 Approximate costs

$40,400

$59.350

In calculating the development cost, we considered an average hourly rate of $50 for the team's work.

Consequently, women's health app development cost is estimated to range from $40,000 to $60,000.

💡 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 the femtech 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 women's health tracking app 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!

Contact Us to Build a Custom Solution!

Questions you may have

Take a look at how we solve challenges to meet project requirements

Can you implement educational content and articles related to women's health topics?

Of course, please contact us and we will discuss the functionality of your application in more detail. Our experience in developing mobile and web applications, especially in the healthcare and fitness sector, confirms that we can implement such features. Additionally, partners will aid in the implementation process and content creation.

How can the app integrate birth control tracking, reminders, and side-effects monitoring for hormonal contraceptives?

Stormotion has experience in developing health and fitness applications, which often include features such as tracking and reminders. This experience can be used to integrate birth control tracking, reminders, and monitoring of side effects of hormonal contraceptives into the application. Mainly, we use React Native for cross-platform development, ensuring functionality on iOS and Android devices.

Are you familiar with and capable of complying with regulations such as HIPAA, GDPR, or data protection laws?

Of course, in working on any project, we comply with all rules, including HIPAA, GDPR, and data protection laws.

Can the app include nutrition tracking tailored to women's health, including dietary recommendations for various needs?

Yes, we have experience in developing applications for nutrition and workouts, you can learn more about them in the Portfolio section on our website. This experience can be adapted to include nutrition tracking features, specifically tailored to women's health, including personalized dietary recommendations.

Are you experienced in creating pregnancy tracking features, including daily well-being check-ups and pregnancy journals?

We have extensive experience in developing comprehensive applications for healthcare and fitness, so we can develop features such as pregnancy tracking, including daily health checks and pregnancy journals.

How can the app help users predict and manage their periods and fertility windows?

By implementing algorithms and a tracking system for monitoring menstrual cycles and providing forecasts and information about fertility.

What features can you incorporate to track menstrual cycles, ovulation, and PMS symptoms?

Utilizing data analysis and user input, we can enhance women's health by developing personalized tracking systems and notifications, aiding in the monitoring of the monthly period cycle, predicting ovulation, and tracking premenstrual syndrome symptoms.

Read also

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