JOIN USThe cup that cheers!
We never heed the warnings that are given to us when using substances that are harmful to us. Let us start with the most common item...the disposable plastic water bottle that everyone buys, carries and keeps in a vehicle to use. Just this week I bought a steel flask for the driver who was taking me around Guntur so that he could use it instead of the plastic bottle that he has been using all this time as it will contain water which gets heated up when kept in the car and you know how hot Guntur gets! The autorickshaw driver in Bengaluru was carrying a 2-litre plastic bottle and had wrapped it in a cloth to keep it cool. That does not prevent the plastic from leaching into the water.
The story of the paper cup is the same — loads of research has been done (by none other than IIT Kharagpur) concluding that drinking hot liquids in paper cups melts the wax that lines the cup which ends up in the GI tract and causes harm. Similarly, despite cancer research showing that eating gutkha is one of the primary causes of cheek, mouth and tongue cancer, many high-profile actors still advertise for it and get paid handsomely.
Product awareness
Never have we asked as to what stuff goes into the making of the pad. We took it for granted that it was healthy just because it was white and looked clean. Since 1974 it has become necessary to declare the ingredients that go to make a product. But because the manufacturing of pads started before that, they did not come under the ambit of this declaration. There is very little research that has been done on menstrual hygiene products. It’s a Rs 20,000 crore industry annually in India. It was only after the Women’s Voices for the Earth came out with the contents of the pads that we began to worry about the harmful effects of period care products. We also started correlating the problems that we were facing during our periods with the usage of pads and tampons.
The vagina, like the mouth, is an unsterile organ and has loads of bacteria in its microbiome. The vaginal mucosa like the mucosa of the mouth has a plentiful blood supply that makes it very absorptive to all the chemicals in the pad. The dioxins and furans that are got from the bleaching of the pad (are the No 1 cancer-causing agents to us) result in making the cervical mucosa susceptible to various organisms like the HPV virus. As menstrual blood travels from the uterus through the cervix and the vagina, it collects the bacteria and this then lands on the disposable pad. The pad then, with the blood, provides a perfect growth media for the bacteria and these bacteria then produce various gases that make the pad stink. The pads are perfumed to mask this smell, but many women are unknowingly allergic to these perfumes. The rashes in the groin area and thighs caused due to the above factors make periods a very uncomfortable affair.
Period poverty
National Geographic magazine carried an article “How tampons and pads became so unsustainable”, on Sept 6, 2019, and it gave credence to the problems that we are facing with the disposal of the pads that we are all using. With advertisements egging more and more urban and rural women to give up the old-fashioned cloth pads and take to single-use disposable pads not only did the mountains of garbage increase, but the other way of dealing with the menstrual waste — the incinerator was no less detrimental to health with all the toxins spewing out in the air. Blocked drains, water, soil and air pollution don’t endear the disposable menstrual hygiene products in this day and age of climate crisis. Also, because pads have to be bought every month, there is period poverty — where women do not have money to buy disposable sanitary pads and use the pads for longer than 6 hours subjecting themselves to infections. The pandemic made this problem more acute as schools were closed and pads were not distributed to the children. The labour force was all jobless, so while lots of people pitched in with food, nobody thought that pads are an essential supply. Menstruation does not stop irrespective of what calamity you are facing, thus many women suffered from period poverty. Like the problem of scarcity of tissue paper that the USA suffered, a lack of sanitary pads and tampons was also a problem during the Covid pandemic. At this time the Indian solution, where we use water to clean ourselves after ablutions suddenly became very attractive. Similarly, cloth pads with their leakproof jacket (a new design element) became a way to deal with period poverty, lots of adolescents adapted to this and liked it too. NGOs were happy to donate this. The menstrual cup also became a go-to solution with its NO RASH, NO TRASH and NO CASH for women above 20 years of age. Adult women took to it without inhibitions.
So do we worry about the toxicity that the disposable options give us or look at a totally different solution to our menstrual hygiene? Like the way we just stopped using KODAK films with the advent of the digital camera, we have to make a drastic change for menstrual hygiene too. These two solutions, the 21st-century innovations, also have the added advantage that they do not have any toxicity or health problems, unlike the plastic-ridden single-use disposable pads and tampons. The newly designed cloth pads made of new material with a leakproof jacket take away the one problem that the old cloth pads had — that of staining the clothes. Also, they are easy to wash and dry in the sun which helps to sanitise them. Menstrual cups are made of medical grade silicone, act as a receptacle to collect the blood coming into the vagina, do not change the blood texture, nor cause any infection, require very little water to clean, make the woman feel squeaky clean, have three times the holding capacity (15 ml) as that of the disposable sanitary pad and also last for 10 years. A little bit of learning to use it is needed, but I believe that if women can learn how to use the smartphone, then they will learn to use this smart product without any difficulty and have enjoyable periods. It’s fantastic that governments across India are now considering sustainable solutions for menstrual hygiene products. While there is a long way to go towards the implementation of these ideas, the first steps are being taken.
(The author is a retired fertility specialist and an advocate of sustainable living who is passionate about women converting to using the menstrual cup. She can be reached at meenakshibharath@gmail.com)