Menstruation is still a taboo topic in many parts of India. We know that every teenage girl gets her period after hitting puberty, but people don’t want to talk about it. This leads to unsanitary menstrual practices, lack of resources, stigmatizing periods and the imposition of religious and cultural restrictions on menstruating girls.
Menstruating women are often kept away from social and religious events, denied entry to temples and even kitchens. A National Family Health Survey (NFHS) found that only 58% of women aged 15 to 24 use hygiene during their period in India. This is due to a lack of awareness and unavailability of sanitary products.
Conditions worsened as the country was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, the women who were given access to at least some services faced the same situation again. dr. Ranjana Becon, gynecologist at Columbia Asia Hospital in Ghaziabad, said: “A large number of people live in unsanitary menstrual conditions and do not have proper menstrual products. The situation has worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic.”
He added: “The pandemic has put a lot of financial stress on people and forced them to shift their priorities towards needs such as food rather than buying good materials for menstrual hygiene. This makes them very vulnerable to many deadly diseases, especially during Covid times.”
Lack of sanitary goods has drastically disrupted women’s menstrual patterns leading to a greater impact causing infertility in women. To prevent infertility due to menstrual practices, experts have suggested some measures.
dr. Aswati Nair, Fertility Consultant at Nova IVF Fertility, New Delhi, stated: “Since our menstrual pattern can sometimes be a sign of infertility, one should therefore pay extra attention to their menstrual pattern or cycle and menstrual hygiene. In our country, several factors influence the menstrual behaviour. Of these, economic status and housing status are the most influential, both in urban and rural areas.”
Let’s take a look at some steps to prevent infertility due to poor menstrual practices:
- Design a system for talking about menstruation and for accessing healthy menstrual knowledge.
- Development and dissemination of sensitive information in a well-channeled manner to reach both parents and their adolescent children.
- Provide youth with youth-friendly services and improve current resources.
- Educating young girls about the importance of maintaining hygiene during menstruation to avoid the risk of reproductive respiratory infections.
- Promotion of sex education in schools.
- Tackling taboos to have a healthy conversation.
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