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Users can now log whether they're in perimenopause or menopause, they can track symptoms, and they can monitor their cycles over time. If you're over 40 and the Cycle Tracking app spots irregular or missed periods, users will get an alert that they might be in perimenopause. There will also be new educational articles to help users understand the new changes. There's also a new Apple Fitness Plus program, Strong Through Menopause, which is a progressive three-week program featuring weekly Yoga and Strength workouts designed to help users navigating perimenopause and menopause build strength, i

"It is all based on manual logging," explains Dr Cheung. "However, what the temperature and heart rate data on Apple Watch do is improve the accuracy of our predictions. When someone uses temperature to better track and understand retrospective ovulation and their cycles in general, it improves the period predictions as well as the fertile window predictions," she adds. At the rollout, the temperature sensor on the Apple Watch won't be able to record symptoms like night sweats and hot flashes; users will have to manually log these. Night sweats also won't be linked to the sleep tracking featur

"We use a six-month window, and we look for essentially more than one abnormal occurrence," explains Dr Cheung. Anyone tracking their cycle will know it's not abnormal to have one or two cycles that look a little different for several reasons, so Apple explained that this longer six-month period allows them to be more certain when it is something a user actually needs to pay attention to. When I asked how the tool would be able to differentiate between perimenopausal irregularities and other causes of erratic periods, such as PCOS, Dr Cheung explained, "We are using the FIGO guidelines — that’

Through its Health app, Apple has strived to support women through every stage of life. "For us, it's been really important to help users turn their health information into meaningful insights they can better understand and act on", explains Dr Cheung. "We believe everyone deserves powerful personalized health tools, and so we have a track record of focusing on health needs that have often been overlooked and building thoughtful solutions, whether that's for fall risk to hearing health, to heart rhythm notifications, and as you know, cycle tracking and women's health has been long, long been o