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Femtech and mental health – the biggest developments
The rise in femtech over the past few years has brought female health to the forefront of the market. From period tracking apps to fertility support, technology has opened up a whole new world for women looking to take control of their health. But how is the tech addressing women’s mental health concerns? Femtech World reports.
Over recent years, as a population we’ve all been increasingly aware with mental health, with books, courses and apps all being produced to support users’ emotional wellbeing.
In England, around one in five women has a common mental health problem such as anxiety, depression or self-harm.
And the pandemic is said to have disproportionately affected the mental health of women in particular. In fact, research from the US using real-time survey data, found that the gender gap in mental health in the US increased by 66 per cent over the course of the pandemic.
Now, femtech is being leveraged to help women take care of their mental health across a number of spheres – with a number of exciting developments and deals having been launched in recent years.
Maternal health
The magnitude of pregnancy and becoming a parent can often be the trigger for mental health issues in women.
And Covid-19 exacerbated the issue, with the risk for depression during pregnancy doubling during the pandemic, while breastfeeding issues were also magnified, with statistics revealing to a 41 per cent newborn readmittance rate for feeding problems in the US.
To combat the most common issues, in September 2021, women’s healthcare specialist Sonder Health and virtual reality firm BehaVR have teamed up to create NurtureVR, a VR-based digital therapeutic to help expectant mothers with stress, anxiety and fear.
When combined with Sonder Health’s existing services, the platform provides mothers-to-be and new parents with round-the-clock support.
It provides mums and their families with access to 22 weeks of educational material, mindfulness skills and immersive experiences, along with around-the-clock access to specialty-trained telehealth lactation consultants and registered dietitians.
Mindfulness
In October 2020, femtech start-up Clementine raised £1m in equity funding from impact venture capital firm Fortunis.
The female-focused hypnotherapy app, aims to help women find their inner calm, become more confident, reduce anxiety and sleep better.
It offers a range of bite-sized sessions of what it calls cognitive hypnotherapy, a style of talking therapy that encourages a person to shift their mindset, using a combination of soothing music and spoken word to lull users into a sense of calm.
The app was developed by Kim Palmer, who named it after her habit of bringing a clementine into stressful meetings and using it as a subtle tool to quell anxiety, by peeling or holding it to help keep her focused. Many of the hypnotherapy sessions on the Clementine app work in the same way: five-minute recordings designed to easily fit into users’ days.
Banishing worry
Women are statistically more likely to suffer from anxiety than men, although why this should be is unclear.
Worry Tree was developed by lifelong worrier Louise Stevenson, after her husband told her that her anxiety was having a negative impact on every aspect of family life.
The app is one of just 15 approved mental health tools in the NHS app library, and helps users notice and challenge their worries. It is available for anyone to use, but 75 per cent of users are women.
It uses CBT techniques to train people who suffer from excessive worry to notice when they are worrying and try to build more constructive habits of problem-solving and distraction.
Connecting mothers
As well as the physical and emotional changes that accompany pregnancy and motherhood, many new mums suffer from feelings of isolation and loneliness.
The Peanut app was founded in 2017 when Michelle Kennedy had her first child and found there was little social support available.
Having worked in social networking for ten years, Michelle set out to reduce feelings of isolation and make sure no one has to navigate womanhood alone.
Peanut started life as a way of bringing new parents together socially and has since grown and developed to connect women at every life stage – from puberty and pregnancy through to motherhood and menopause – so that women of all generations can access support.
Breast cancer support
One woman is diagnosed with breast cancer every 10 minutes in the UK. And while survival rates have improved massively over recent years – when diagnosed at its earliest stage, almost all people with breast cancer will survive their disease for five years or more – it can still be a worrying time.
Charity Breast Cancer Now’s Becca app provides specialist support to help sufferers live with, through and beyond their diagnosis, particularly when it comes to their mental health.
Easy-to-use flashcards give information, support and inspiration to anyone struggling to find their “new normal” following diagnosis.
It includes patient stories, information on side effects of different treatments, menopausal symptoms, fatigue, diet, exercise and body image.
Women with osteoporosis may be more likely to carry a gene linked to Alzheimer’s, according to new research.
Scientists found that APOE4, the most common genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s, can weaken bone quality in women, even when standard scans appear normal.
The study, carried out by researchers at the Buck Institute for Research on Ageing in California, US, and UC San Francisco, suggests the gene may damage bone at a microscopic level long before any visible signs.
These changes can emerge as early as midlife and remain invisible to routine imaging tests used to assess bone strength.
The findings suggest a link between Alzheimer’s risk and skeletal health and could help pave the way for earlier detection of both conditions.
Professor Birgit Schilling, a senior author of the study, said: “What makes this finding so striking is that bone quality is being compromised at a molecular level that a standard bone scan simply will not catch.
“APOE4 is quietly disrupting the very cells responsible for keeping bone strong – and it is doing this specifically in females, which mirrors what we see with Alzheimer’s disease risk.”
Doctors have long observed that people with Alzheimer’s suffer higher rates of bone fractures, while osteoporosis in women is known to be one of the earliest predictors of the disease.
Now scientists believe they may have uncovered why.
Researchers led by Dr Charles Schurman carried out a detailed analysis of proteins in aged mouse bone and found that tissue was unusually rich in molecules linked to neurological disease, including those associated with Alzheimer’s.
In particular, long-lived bone cells known as osteocytes showed elevated levels of APOE, with levels twice as high in older female mice compared with younger or male animals.
Further experiments using genetically modified mice revealed that APOE4 had a strong and sex-specific impact on both bone and brain tissue.
The disruption at the protein level was even greater in bone than in the brain.
However, the bone structure itself appeared completely normal under scans.
Instead, the gene interfered with a key maintenance process inside bone cells, preventing them from repairing microscopic channels that keep bones strong and resilient.
When this process breaks down, bones become more fragile even if they look healthy on standard imaging.
These results suggest bone cells could potentially act as early biological warning signs of cognitive decline in women carrying APOE4.
Professor Lisa Ellerby, another senior author, said: “We think targeting these cells may open a new front in preserving bone quality in this population.”
Experts say the findings highlight the need to view the body as an interconnected system rather than treating diseases in isolation.
Dementia, of which Alzheimer’s is the most common form, remains one of the UK’s biggest health challenges.
Around 900,000 people are currently living with the condition, a figure expected to rise to 1.6 million by 2040.
It is already the leading cause of death, responsible for more than 74,000 deaths each year.
Health secretary Wes Streeting has relaunched England’s women’s health strategy, vowing to stop women being “gaslit” by doctors.
Speaking before publication of the renewed strategy, the health secretary said the NHS was “failing women” and set out measures to help them access the healthcare they need.
The government said the strategy would include a new standard of care to ensure women were offered pain relief for invasive procedures, such as fitting a contraceptive coil and hysteroscopies.
Feedback would be directly linked to provider funding through a new trial, giving women more power to affect change if they have a poor experience.
Action would also be taken to ensure women no longer face long waits for diagnoses for conditions such as endometriosis, which can take a decade to diagnose.
Streeting said: “[Women] have for so long been let down by a healthcare system that too often gaslights women, treating their pain as an inconvenience and their symptoms as an overreaction.
“Whether it’s being passed from one appointment to another for conditions like endometriosis and fibroids, or a lack of proper pain relief during invasive procedures, through to having to navigate symptoms for years before receiving a diagnosis, it’s clear the system is failing women.
“Women’s voices must be central to delivering effective, respectful and empathetic care. We need to hit medical misogyny where it hurts – the wallet.
“Today’s renewed strategy will tackle the issues women face every day and ensure no woman is left fighting to be heard.”
A report last month by the women and equalities committee found that gynaecological and menstrual health had not been “sufficiently prioritised” by the government.
MPs said parts of the 10-year women’s health strategy, launched in 2022 by the Conservatives, were at risk of being scaled back or discontinued under wider changes to the NHS.
These included initiatives that had reduced waiting lists and improved women’s access to healthcare, such as women’s health hubs.
Sarah Owen, chair of the committee and a Labour MP, said: “This would be a disaster for girls’ and women’s menstrual healthcare, when it is in dire need of more support.
“It is a national scandal that nearly half a million women are on hospital gynaecology waiting lists when there are effective treatments that could be administered in primary and community care, if only they could access them.”
The report said women faced “medical misogyny” and were left to “suck it up” and suffer in pain for years because of a lack of awareness of women’s health conditions.
A redesign of clinical pathways for some women’s health issues will aim to speed up diagnosis and treatment, and there will be a review of support for families who experience repeated baby loss.
The government also promised a “single referral point” to ensure women were directed to the right place the first time they sought help.
Dr Sue Mann, NHS England’s women’s health director, said too many women were dismissed for “serious symptoms” that affected every part of their lives.
“The renewed women’s health strategy will build significantly on the work the NHS has been doing to ensure women are heard and get the specialist care they need,” she said.
Women’s health groups cautiously welcomed the renewed strategy. Emma Cox, chief executive of Endometriosis UK, said decisive action would be vital to improve women’s healthcare in England.
Future Fertility, a Toronto-based health technology company specialising in AI-powered fertility insights, has entered the Japanese market through a new commercial partnership with Kato Ladies Clinic — a globally recognised leader in IVF research and advancing clinical fertility care.
The collaboration marks Future Fertility’s first partnership in Japan and reflects growing global demand for technologies that bring greater objectivity and personalisation to fertility care.
Kato Ladies Clinic will integrate the company’s AI-powered oocyte (egg) quality assessment tools into its clinical workflows, with the aim of supporting more informed treatment planning and patient counselling across IVF and egg freezing cycles.
“At Kato Ladies Clinic, we are committed to advancing fertility care through innovation while maintaining a strong focus on individualised, patient-centred treatment,” said Keiichi Kato, chief executive officer.
“Partnering with Future Fertility enables us to integrate objective, data-driven insights into our clinical approach and better support our patients in making informed decisions.”
Future Fertility’s platform analyses images of oocytes using artificial intelligence trained and validated on a dataset of more than 650,000 unique oocyte images.
The technology is already in use at more than 300 clinics across more than 35 countries, helping clinicians better understand the developmental potential of individual eggs and provide patients with more personalised insight earlier in their treatment journey.
From Research Collaboration to Clinical Adoption
The partnership between Future Fertility and Kato Ladies Clinic began as a scientific research collaboration in 2024, marking the first use of AI-powered oocyte quality assessment in Japan.
The collaboration not only validated the technology in a new patient population and across diverse clinical protocols — including minimal stimulation cycles —but also resulted in a peer-reviewed publication in Reproductive BioMedicine Online (RBMO) and a poster abstract presentation at ESHRE 2025.
The joint research explored how AI-derived oocyte quality scores relate to early embryonic development and overall treatment outcomes. In a retrospective study conducted at Kato Ladies Clinic, researchers analysed nearly 2,800 mature oocytes across more than 1,300 ICSI cycles, linking image-based assessments of egg quality to key developmental milestones.
The study demonstrated that lower AI scores were associated with reduced fertilization rates, delays, and abnormalities in early embryo development, increased developmental errors, and lower-quality blastocyst formation.
Notably, the researchers also found that cumulative oocyte scores were a stronger predictor of live birth outcomes than the number of eggs retrieved — underscoring the importance of assessing egg quality alongside quantity.
“Our collaboration with Future Fertility has demonstrated how artificial intelligence can uncover meaningful biological differences between oocytes that were previously difficult to quantify,” said Kenji Ezoe, senior scientist.
“Bringing this technology into routine clinical use is an important step toward translating research into improved patient outcomes.”
Future Fertility’s VP of clinical embryology & scientific operations, Jullin Fjeldstad, noted that the findings provide important clinical validation.
“Our joint research with Kato Ladies Clinic has shown how AI-based oocyte assessment can be directly linked to numerous embryo development outcomes, from fertilization through early developmental milestones and blastocyst formation,” she said.
“We are excited to see this work translated into clinical practice.”
Growing Demand for Fertility Care in Japan
The partnership comes at a time when demand for fertility treatment in Japan continues to rise.
The country performs over 450,000 fertility treatment cycles annually, making it one of the largest markets globally. Delayed childbearing and evolving societal trends have also contributed to increasing interest in egg freezing.
As patients seek more clarity and personalization in their care, tools that provide earlier insight into reproductive potential are gaining traction.
“Entering the Japanese market with a partner like Kato Ladies Clinic is a significant step forward for our global commercial strategy,” said Rafael Gonzalez, Future Fertility’s VP of global sales & strategy.
“It reflects the growing demand for technologies that support more transparent, data-driven fertility care across diverse healthcare systems.”
Expanding a Global Footprint
Founded in 1993, Kato Ladies Clinic is known for its pioneering work in natural and minimal stimulation IVF and has long been a leader in clinical innovation in Japan.
For Future Fertility, the partnership represents both a geographic expansion and a continuation of its broader mission to bring AI-driven insights into routine fertility care.
“We are proud to partner with Kato Ladies Clinic, a globally respected leader in IVF and a pioneer in reproductive medicine in Japan,” said Future Fertility’s CEO, Christy Prada.
“This partnership represents an important milestone as we expand into Asia and continue our mission to bring objective, personalised insights into fertility care worldwide.”
Future Fertility develops AI-powered tools designed to generate personalised insights across the fertility journey.
Its flagship oocyte assessment technologies analyse egg images to provide objective, individualised measures of egg quality, supporting treatment planning, patient counselling, and clinical decision-making in egg freezing and IVF, while also enabling more data-driven approaches to donor egg distribution and quality assurance.
As fertility care continues to evolve, collaborations like this one are helping shape a new standard — one that emphasises earlier insight, greater transparency, and more personalised decision-making for patients navigating increasingly complex reproductive journeys.
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