Our Vaginal Microbiome Screening Kits Are Here!

A bit of backstory

In 2020, Daye was founded with one core mission in mind: to bridge the gender health gap that keeps so many women’s health issues in the dark. We started by inventing the world’s first CBD tampon, which has since been a trusty tool to over 60,000 individuals, and now, we’ve created something that will change the gynaecological health game forever.

Our Vaginal Microbiome Screening service takes tampon innovation to new heights — helping to calculate your risk of STIs, vaginal infections, and fertility complications from the comfort of your own home. In the near future, it’ll also be able to detect active STIs and strains of HPV, using nothing but your used tampon.

Launching this week, our screening kits give women and AFAB individuals comprehensive insights into their sexual and reproductive health, no matter what stage of life they’re at.

Healthcare for the female body is broken today

We know from the research that vaginal conditions often go undiagnosed (up to 70% of pathogenic infections in women and AFAB individuals are asymptomatic). On top of that, approximately 50-75% of people with bacterial vaginosis (BV) experience no symptoms. Asymptomatic vaginal conditions are particularly problematic when it comes to undiagnosed STIs and HPV, which can lead to infertility and cervical cancer. Left untreated, BV is also known to increase the risk of preterm labour. 

Our community has reported being largely frustrated with the state of gynaecological care today. We often hear reports of people suffering from recurrent vaginal infections, which seem to never go away (did you know that 138 million women suffer recurrent infections?). Our customers have reported experiencing little to no personalisation in the way their vaginal healthcare is delivered, and many of them do not feel heard — having had their symptoms written off as “the cost of having a uterus”. They’re frustrated about how little has been done for people with periods and how we are often forced to settle with the pain we experience.

A lot of us find gynae exams overly invasive and time consuming, and as a result, hundreds of millions of vaginal health appointments get missed every year. This is where our comfortable, non-invasive tampon screening can make a real difference — and its advantages go well beyond comfort. Tampon screening can also increase the sensitivity and specificity of vaginal health diagnostics, improving patient outcomes by reducing false negatives.

So, what is an at-home gynae screen? What is the tampon-based vaginal microbiome screening?

We want to democratise access to comprehensive gynaecological care for all. The vaginal microbiome is a key predictor of a number of different gynaecological health factors, including:

• Your risk of STIs
• Recurrent vaginal infections such as thrush and bacterial vaginosis (BV)
• Miscarriage and pre-term labour
• Successful IVF cycle 

As part of the screen, we’re also introducing our telemedical gynaecological health platform, which will initially provide access to treatments for vaginal infections and will later expand to contraception, as well as treatments for PCOS and endometriosis. We will also connect our community with vetted, empathetic physicians, who specialise in gynaecological health, provide personalised support, and help customers get the right treatments (delivered to their door!).

Why tampons? What are the benefits of vaginal screening with tampons? 

Tampons can break the cycle of poor innovation in gynaecological health. They can be used to administer medications directly to the vagina, and also provide a more accurate sample than a standard swab.

Yet, the potential of tampons has largely been overlooked. This is partially due to the high levels of monopolisation in the tampon industry, which we’re aiming to challenge through vertical integration. Beyond an R&D and a biotech company, Daye is also a design engineering company, which designs its own products and production lines. 

The Vaginal Microbiome Screen is the first screening kit to use a menstrual tampon to collect a vaginal fluids sample. Traditionally, a person would need to go to a clinic where they would meet with a speculum and a pokey swab. Daye’s screen means a woman can take the sample at home with a product she is familiar with and has used for years. This saves time, effort and cost.

Putting gynae health in your hands 

Vaginal microbiome screening is a powerful tool because it enables us to look at the entire microbial community, decipher how its overall composition might be affecting symptoms and infections, and determine the best treatment pathway. Personalising vaginal treatments also reduces the risk of a recurrent infection, which helps save time and money in the long run. Understanding the complete vaginal microbiome allows us to be good antibiotic stewards, and only administer antibiotics when they’re  100% necessary.

With the launch of our screening kits, we’re one step closer to developing a one-stop-shop for all things gynae health. Through our site, Daye customers can get accessto a toolkit of healthcare products and services which enable them to be their own health hero. Every product we develop is highly effective, rigorously tested, and created with the purpose of closing the gender health gap for good.