1 | A small sense of unease

One of the things that sparked my interest in Femtech was a menstrual cup that emerged from Korea in 2017.

It was a menstrual cup called LooonCup. The product concept was that the cup itself had a sensor embedded in it that could measure leakage and internal body temperature.

My astonishment stemmed less from technical aspects and more from something fundamental. The very concept of treating menstrual blood as something to "measure" was new to me.

For a long time, menstruation has been treated as "unclean" in many parts of the world. In Japan, there were once places called "menstrual huts" where menstruating women were isolated. Even today, trash cans for sanitary products are called "waste receptacles."

Because it's "unclean," it's ignored. It's disposed of as waste, and not recorded. No one ever thought to measure that blood.

The problem wasn't menstruation itself, but the layers of cultural and social preconceptions that had been wrapped around it.

2 | The structural issue

Menstruation has long been relegated to the "private sphere."
Neither the medical community nor individuals themselves have accumulated much data.
Monthly blood loss. How many days it lasts. What causes it to change.

Simply marking "first day of period" on a calendar actually obscures a lot of information.

And this "lack of visibility" has often been used as a basis to judge something as "not abnormal." What isn't measured rarely makes it into medical discussions, workplace policy design, or policy debates.

Between these words, repeated countless times in consulting rooms, many people's experiences have quietly slipped away. It's no one's fault. It's due to a structure built on the premise that data "doesn't exist."

3 | The meaning of measuring

From a public health perspective, in order to address something as a societal issue, we first need a "baseline."

What is considered "normal" within a population? How much deviation from that should be seen as a "change"? There has been no standard for judging this in menstruation until now. The area squarely between "individual sensation" and "medical test values" was conspicuously empty.

I believe Emm, a UK-based company, is gradually trying to fill this void from the extension of daily life.

Data is quietly recorded during the normal act of using the cup. Daily blood loss. How quickly the cup fills. Cycle length. Monthly changes.

Hardly any special effort is required. There's no need to open an app every day or continuously translate one's sensations into words. The data measured close to the body is designed to be returned to you later.

Another important design point to remember is that data transfer only occurs when the cup is outside the body and placed in its charging case. It does not communicate externally when it is inside the body.

"Measuring" and "privacy" will be a recurring theme for Femtech. Emm's design already offers one answer to this question.

4 | Therefore, this is my view

I believe that measuring is not an act of controlling oneself.

It's about being able to treat your body with a slightly higher resolution. It's not data to fuel anxiety, but data to increase the margin for judgment.

Just that alone changes the quality of conversations with doctors, and the quality of self-dialogue, even if only slightly.

And another important point is that "my data" doesn't just end with me.

If individual records accumulate, they will eventually become the basis for research, the blueprint for systems, and decision-making material in someone's examination room. The story of an individual's body and the story of societal structure are continuous.

Introducing products like Emm to Japan has a meaning for us that goes beyond "selling products." It's closer to the task of re-contextualizing "a part of this continuum" within the Japanese context.

Japan's healthcare system. Working styles. Sex education in schools. Conversations at home.

What will change when the premise of "menstrual data exists" becomes commonplace in each of these areas? I believe the discussion of societal implementation begins there.

I perceive that what technology is now beginning to weave is this kind of transformation: menstrual blood, once treated as "unclean," is quietly changing its form into "information" for discussing each individual's health.

5 | Quiet questions

Once measurement becomes commonplace, what kind of relationship will we re-establish with our bodies?
How many stages will we be able to place between "not abnormal" and "healthy"?