Menstrual Cups: The Sustainable Future for Women Hygiene in India

In India, the usage of Menstrual Cups is comparatively limited. The study focuses on the acceptability, affordability, accessibility and awareness of Menstrual Cups amongst Indian women in the menstruating age. An assessment of the Knowledge, Aptitude, Practice and Behaviour (KAPB) of Menstrual Cups was done. The sampled data received from various parts of the country, after exclusions, included 397 responses. The average age of the respondents was 24 years where most of them were students and were from urban dwelling. From the results, it was inferred that menstrual cups users were in favour with their experiences with 79% reporting menstrual cups to be comfortable and 82% of the users found menstrual cups to be cheaper compared to other menstrual products, 61% of the users reported menstrual cups to be easy to adapt. For monthly expenditure of sanitary products, menstrual cups were more cost efficient as users spent an average of Rs 0-100 in comparison to other Sanitary Products where users spent an average of Rs 100-300. Disposable Sanitary pads was the most used sanitary product by non-menstrual cup users. 29.6% of the respondents are willing to switch to menstrual cups and 45.4% of the respondents are not sure if they want to switch to menstrual cups. The reasons for non-usage of menstrual cups was mostly comfort (32%), limited knowledge (25%) and accessibility (15%). Homemakers scored high on Practice and Behaviour questions while Business women scored high on Knowledge and Aptitude questions. Both users and non-users recommended conducting awareness drives in the form of seminars focusing on clarifying myths and taboos related to menstrual cups. A change in favor of menstrual cups could be made possible by targeted pricing and advertising

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Menstrual Hygiene Practices of Adolescent Girls in Rural Maharashtra

Indian Journal of Gender Studies ◽

10.1177/0971521520974879 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 28 (1) ◽

pp. 127-137

Author(s):

Sumit Aggarwal ◽

Deepti Ambalkar ◽

Jayaprakasam Madhumathi ◽

Vijay Badge ◽

Arun Humne

Keyword(s):

Adolescent Girls ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Cultural Beliefs ◽

Knowledge Dissemination ◽

Personal Interview ◽

Menstrual Hygiene ◽

Hygiene Practices ◽

Sanitary Products ◽

Sanitary Pads ◽

The Right

Menstrual practices of adolescent girls in rural parts of India are greatly influenced by taboos and socio-cultural beliefs. In this study, the menstrual hygiene practices and beliefs of 122 adolescent girls between the ages of 13 and 19 years from rural Maharashtra were evaluated by personal interview and questionnaires. None of the girls had the right scientific knowledge about menstruation and were isolated during menstruation. They used cloth or home-made sanitary pads and were at risk of infections. There is a dire need for knowledge dissemination among school children and their families, increased awareness of menstrual hygiene and access to the requisite sanitary products in rural areas.

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Comparing use and acceptability of menstrual cups and sanitary pads by schoolgirls in rural Western Kenya

International Journal of Reproduction Contraception Obstetrics and Gynecology ◽

10.18203/2320-1770.ijrcog20193506 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 8 (8) ◽

pp. 2974

Author(s):

Linda Mason ◽

Elizabeth Nyothach ◽

Anna Maria Van Eijk ◽

David Obor ◽

Kelly T. Alexander ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Linear Trend ◽

Prior Experience ◽

Middle Income ◽

Western Kenya ◽

Middle Income Countries ◽

Product Use ◽

Sanitary Pads ◽

Menstrual Products ◽

Over Time

Background: Girls in low and middle-income countries (LMIC) lack access to hygienic and affordable menstrual products. We explore Kenyan schoolgirls’ use and views of the cup compared to girls provided with disposable sanitary pads for a feasibility study.Methods: Schoolgirls aged 14-16 years, received a menstrual cup in 10 schools or 16 pads/month in another10 schools. All were trained by nurses on puberty, hand washing, and product use. They self-completed a net book survey at baseline and twice a term during a year follow-up. We examined their reported ease of insertion and removal, also comfort, soreness, and pain with product use. An aggregate ‘acceptability’ score was compiled for each product and girls’ socio-demographic and menstrual characteristics were compared.Results: 195 participants received cups and 255 pads. Mean age was 14.6 years, menarchial age was 13.6 years, with an average 3.8 days menses per month. Cup use was 39% in month 1, rising to 80% by month 12 (linear trend p<0.001). Pad use rose from 85% to 92% (linear trend p=0.15). Measures of cup acceptability demonstrated girls had initial problems using the cup but reported difficulties with insertion, removal and comfort reduced over time. Girls using pads reported fewer acceptability issues. At baseline, approximately a quarter of girls in the pad arm reported inserting pads intravaginally although this was significantly lower among girls with prior experience of pad use (aRR 0.62; 0.45-0.87).Conclusions: While a smaller proportion of girls provided with cups used them in the first months compared to girls given pads, reported use was similar by study-end, and early acceptability issues reduced over time. Girls in LMIC may successfully and comfortably use cups, but require instruction, support and some persistence.

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Sustainable Sanitary Pad: A Case from Tamil Nadu

IRA International Journal of Education and Multidisciplinary Studies ◽

10.21013/jems.v13.n3.p4 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 13 (3) ◽

pp. 54

Author(s):

Shankar Chatterjee

Keyword(s):

Family Member ◽

Rural Areas ◽

Tamil Nadu ◽

Indian Women ◽

Self Help ◽

Survey Report ◽

Grassroots Level ◽

Sanitary Pads ◽

Self Help Groups ◽

Different Levels

According to the WHO survey conducted in October 2017 carried out across India including 35 cities viz., Bengaluru, Chennai, Cuttack, Delhi, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Kolkata, Ludhiana, Mumbai, Ranchi, Srinagar, Surat and Thiruvananthapuramwomen respondents were contacted to get an idea about issues related to women. It has been revealed that about 43 percent of Indian women did not have access to sanitary essentials at the beginning of periods, while 36 percent felt uncomfortable in buying them with other customers around. Further, according to the survey report around 67 percent women have had to borrow a sanitary essential from a friend, colleague or family member. More than 45 percent women opined that menstruation was still considered a taboo in the society and 36 percent felt uncomfortable while buying sanitary essentials from a chemist shop in the presence of other customers. To address the situation at grassroots level many organizations have been working at different levels like awareness creation, producing of cheap sanitary pads etc. One such organization is Gramalayawhich has been operating in Thottiyam and Thathaiengarpet and Thuraiyur Block in the rural areas and in the slums of Tiruchirappalli City Corporation in Tiruchirappalli District. They are promoting sustainable sanitary pads by producing these through self-help Groups (SHGs). In this article based on a study carried on 1<sup>st</sup> December 2018, a case is presented.

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Personal Narrative: Bloody Precarious Activism in Uganda

The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies ◽

10.1007/978-981-15-0614-7_42 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 551-559

Author(s):

Stella Nyanzi

Keyword(s):

Health Education ◽

Citizen Participation ◽

Personal Narrative ◽

Women's Bodies ◽

Global Citizens ◽

Menstrual Health ◽

Resource Poor ◽

Sanitary Pads ◽

Menstrual Products ◽

The Government

Abstract In her essay, Stella Nyanzi describes and analyzes her dissident activism against the president’s unfulfilled promise of providing sanitary pads to schoolgirls in resource-poor communities in Uganda. Named #Pads4GirlsUg, the campaign enabled local and global citizens to contribute toward the distribution of menstrual products and provide critical menstrual health education. Stella Nyanzi powerfully examines the strategies she used for popularizing the campaign, mobilizing citizen participation, and smashing the silence and taboo around menstruation. Above all, she dissects the countertactics employed by the government to discredit and criminalize the campaign. Stella Nyanzi demonstrates that menstruation and women’s bodies are political and politicized—to the extent that her activism and criticism has led to her imprisonment.

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Are Women Human? Tampon Taxes and the Semiotics of Exclusion

Columbia Journal of Gender and Law ◽

10.52214/cjgl.v41i1.8836 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 41 (1) ◽

pp. 190-97

Author(s):

Carla Spivack

Keyword(s):

Human Rights ◽

Health Needs ◽

Tax Law ◽

Poor Countries ◽

Human Needs ◽

Expressive Function ◽

Tax Relief ◽

Tax Regimes ◽

Sanitary Products ◽

Menstrual Products

By now, there is a robust body of scholarship critiquing the taxation of menstrual products from material, expressive, constitutional, and human rights perspectives. This literature highlights the issue of access to sanitary products in prisons, in secondary schools, and in poor countries. Invoking the expressive function of law, scholars have noted how the tax signals to women that their basic physical and health needs are not human necessities that merit tax exemption—like say Viagra—but are rather luxuries that should be taxed—like cigarettes and alcohol. In this tax regime, human needs considered basic enough to merit tax relief—thinning hair, for example—are male needs. So what else is new? As Catherine Mackinnon asked, ironically, decades ago: Are women human? In this Article, I want to turn the expressive critique of tampon taxation in the direction of semiotics. Culture constitutes systems of signs through which we understand our world. These signs convey meaning though their difference from other signs, not through any intrinsic meaning. Tax law has its own signs. By imposing differing tax regimes on people and things, it tells us how to read them. For example, through differing taxation, it tells us what a family is (one organized around a formal marriage) and is not (networks of dependence organized around cohabitants), what work is (labor exchanged for goods) and is not (housework), etc. Taxes also tell us which goods are luxuries and which are necessities by imposing a luxury tax on certain items and exempting others.

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Period poverty and mental health implications among college-aged women in the United States

BMC Women s Health ◽

10.1186/s12905-020-01149-5 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Lauren F. Cardoso ◽

Anna M. Scolese ◽

Alzahra Hamidaddin ◽

Jhumka Gupta

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Young Women ◽

Online Survey ◽

Severe Depression ◽

Well Being ◽

The United States ◽

Poor Mental Health ◽

The Past ◽

Sanitary Products ◽

Menstrual Products

Abstract Background The purpose of this study is to examine the frequency of “period poverty,” or not being able to afford sanitary products, among university students, and associations with poor mental health. Methods An online survey was conducted with a nationally-drawn sample (N = 471) of college-attending women to assess the association between period poverty and depression. Period poverty was measured via two questions designed for this study; depression was measured with the standard PHQ-9. Multivariable logistic regression was utilized for analysis. Results Among our sample, 14.2% of women had experienced period poverty ever in the past-year; an additional 10% experienced it every month. Compared to those who had never experienced period poverty, adjusted analysis revealed that women with monthly past-year period poverty were the most likely to report moderate/severe depression (AOR = 2.34, 95% CI 1.09–4.99), followed by those who had experienced it ever in the past year (AOR = 1.83, 95% CI, 0.99–3.38). Conclusion Many young women cannot afford menstrual health products to meet their monthly needs, and this may impact their mental well-being. Improved access to affordable menstrual products is needed to support these young women.

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