Tag Archives: period

How Birth Control Empowered Me

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The following post comes to us via Ava Budavari-Glenn, a political communications major and a nonprofit communications minor who is entering her sophomore year at Emerson College. She is a writer whose work focuses mainly on advocacy, and a community organizer who has worked for nonprofit organizations and political campaigns. She is a media and communications intern at Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona.

As many of you reading this blog post probably already know, birth control is not “optional” health care. It is not a bartering chip, nor is it something our society can do without. It is a needed part of health care, just like any other medication.

Rarely does the birth control conversation extend far beyond pregnancy prevention. But actually, what birth control does for women has a far wider reach, because birth control empowers us to live our own lives, exercise bodily autonomy, and have a choice over what the future looks like for us, in more ways than one. I know firsthand how birth control can do that.

Everyone deserves bodily autonomy.

Because birth control gave me my life back.

Growing up, periods were something nobody really talked about with me. There was just a set of norms I had to face. Your period was never something you talked about above a whisper, or through the use of code names that no male around you was supposed to understand. If you leaked blood through the pad, you were supposed to find a way to hide it and not tell anyone, because it would be shameful if anyone around you knew you were menstruating.

I had grown up with other aspects of my body being sexualized by people around me (breasts, hips, really any new curves that suddenly showed up), but this was a different kind of shame. My period was gross. The time of the month where I bled suddenly made me disgusting, even though it was a normal part of growing up. Stereotypes of women having their periods as being bitchy, having mood swings, screaming in pain, or something for people to stay away from because it was that “time of the month again,” suddenly applied to me. So I just learned not to talk about it, and hide it as best as I could. Continue reading →

Why Periods? False Hopes, Popes, and the “Grandfathered” Withdrawal Bleed

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The birth control pill and other hormonal contraception are popular. Menstrual periods are not. Hormonal contraception can be used to suppress menstruation — so why isn’t this method, called “continuous contraception,” more popular?

For decades, packets of birth control pills have typically contained 21 “active” pills and seven “placebo” pills. These placebos — sugar pills — trigger bleeding (which most people think of as a menstrual period, even though it’s technically called a withdrawal bleed). Because menstruation is natural, some people think this withdrawal bleed must somehow be healthier. But there are actually no health benefits — and it might also increase risk for pregnancy.

There is no reason to have a period when on the birth control pill — unless you want one.

Last month, British medical guidelines were revised to recommend continuous use of the birth control pill — that is, with no week-long “break” designed to trigger a withdrawal bleed. We could have been skipping our periods since the Pill was introduced in 1960 — so why is it only now that we are coming to see them as optional?

A flurry of recent articles has touted a rather conspiratorial claim: that the monthly bleed was included in an attempt to make the Pill more palatable to the pope. The Telegraph quoted reproductive health expert John Guillebaud: “John Rock devised [the week of placebo pills] because he hoped that the pope would accept the Pill and make it acceptable for Catholics to use. Rock thought if it did imitate the natural cycle then the pope would accept it.”

Many journalists, pundits, and bloggers have expressed outrage that we’ve been putting up with decades of unnecessary bleeding (and all the attendant pain, headaches, and missed work) just because of an unsuccessful attempt to appease the pope before most women of reproductive age were even born. But the history of the placebo week is more complicated. Continue reading →

One Simple Kit

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A community health worker teaches how to make cloth pads. Photo: Nyaya Health

A community health worker teaches how to make cloth pads. Photo: Nyaya Health

Last week, I texted a friend of mine and told her: I have a hard choice before me. When she asked what that was, I smiled as I replied: I must choose between replenishing the MAC mascara that I just ran out of and buying the new Harry Potter book. We both laughed. But really, even as a single mom who falls beneath the poverty level, this was my choice of the day.

I have known hard times. I have lived in my car with my two dogs and I have had to volunteer my time cleaning my son’s school to ensure that he gets an education because I couldn’t afford the monthly tuition. I have taken hits by the ones I love, both physical and metaphorical, and I have had my innocence stolen from me by a boy I hardly knew.

One simple kit is combating poverty, hunger, and gender inequality.

Yet somewhere across a sea, a young girl sits in her room, blood gushing from her for reasons unbeknownst to her. Fear brings tears to her eyes as she struggles to understand why God has cursed her. That is what her mother has taught her. That if such a thing occurs, it is a curse from her creator for being a filthy creature. A girl her age tells her that she has contracted a disease, something she couldn’t remember the three letters to reference, but she knew was deadly.

In a rural region in southern Malawi, a girl who has had her first period may be expected to undergo a “sexual cleansing” ritual, in which she is made to have unprotected sex with a man called a hyena — a risky proposition in a country in which nearly 1 in 10 adults has HIV. Her choice to deny such an offer could result in her entire family being stricken ill or even dead — at least that is what she is told. Continue reading →

Over 90 Percent of What Planned Parenthood Does, Part 25: Lost Tampons

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Welcome to the latest installment of “Over 90 Percent of What Planned Parenthood Does,” a series on Planned Parenthood Advocates of Arizona’s blog that highlights Planned Parenthood’s diverse array of services — the ones Jon Kyl never knew about.

tamponPlanned Parenthood Arizona offers a wide variety of services, and someday we hope to cover every last one of them in this series. But today, I’d like to talk about one of the odder services: helping you with a lost tampon.

OK, so “lost” might be a weird word. I mean, you probably know the general area where that tricky tampon is lurking … But it happens even to the best of us: Sometimes, when you go to retrieve a tampon, you just … can’t find it. Maybe it was forgotten about, and then pushed farther up the vaginal canal by a subsequent tampon, or smooshed against the cervix during intercourse, and now you can’t find the string to remove it.

The presence of a certain strain of bacteria in one’s vagina can increase risk for toxic shock syndrome, especially when absorbent tampons are used.

The vagina can be a hiding place for all kinds of things — not just tampons, but sex toys, the remnants of broken condoms, and other foreign objects. And vaginas aren’t the only cavity with magical, or possibly just embarrassing, powers of concealment. When I worked at a medical journal, I came across ample (and very, very detailed!) documentation of all sorts of things getting “lost” in people’s rectums, urethras, ears, and throats. Believe me, a seasoned health care provider has probably seen it all, so if you can’t for the life of you remove something from your vagina on your own, don’t be afraid to ask Planned Parenthood for help. (You might ask about making an emergency, same-day appointment.)

Tampons aren’t designed to be used in a vagina for more than a few hours, and leaving them in for too long might increase risk for certain infections. For example, you might have heard of toxic shock syndrome (TSS), which is probably the No. 1 condition that comes to people’s minds when they think of tampons being left in for way too long. While it’s true that TSS is associated with tampons, tampons aren’t the only cause — they play just one role in the infection process. Continue reading →

Teen Talk: The Truth About Tampons

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tamponsIf you had told the 13-year-old version of me that someday, I’d be writing about tampons on a blog, my first reaction would be, “Eww, gross!” But here I am, writing about tampons. Life can take you in unexpected directions.

When I was growing up, tampons had a mixed reputation. There were those people who thought that tampons would somehow make you lose your virginity. Then there were fears about infections, or the chemicals that were used.

In a school or in a pool, tampons are safe and pretty cool.

Me, I was just worried they’d hurt, and I never wanted to use them. My refusal to use a tampon meant that I couldn’t go swimming in gym class — and everyone knew that I was on my period. There I was, sitting in the bleachers as everyone else was splashing around. I knew I wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to wear a tampon — during lunchtime, a few of us quietly talked about our fears, but none of those other girls joined me on the sidelines. I think they were more concerned about their classmates knowing their business. During our six-week swimming unit, only a few girls sat out their periods in the bleachers.

Tampons weren’t the right choice for me at that time, but for other girls, they were convenient and comfortable. If you’re curious about tampons but have some concerns, it might be worth looking into them so you can make an informed decision. I’m glad we have so many options to deal with our periods — my mom would tell me about these crazy belts with buckles or pins that they’d have to put up with every month. But you have a ton of things to choose from when finding the products that work best for you. Continue reading →

Teen Talk: I Can’t Get Pregnant … Can I?

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teen pregnancy testIt’s wasn’t something you thought would happen. Your period is LATE!!! And you were sooooo careful — you didn’t use any contraception because you heard if he didn’t ejaculate or pulled out right away, you couldn’t get pregnant. And, just to be extra sure, you did jumping jacks for several minutes right after! What went wrong? Is it possible that the information you heard from your friends about how not to get pregnant was incorrect?

Sperm have one mission: to find and fertilize an egg. They don’t care what position you’re in, whether you have an orgasm, or if it’s your first time.

You know how babies are made, but you may have misunderstood some basic facts of human biology. The male body produces that tiny resilient sperm — actually millions of tiny resilient sperm — whose only mission is to find and fertilize a woman’s egg. They are so resilient that they can travel farther and live longer than you might think. They are present in men’s ejaculated fluid (semen) and also in the pre-ejaculate (the small amount of fluid that leaks out of the penis before a guy ejaculates). If any of that semen comes in contact with a woman’s vaginal area, there is a chance of her becoming pregnant. And if you don’t use some form of contraception with each and every act of intercourse, you are having unprotected sex, which increases your risk of getting pregnant. It only takes one sperm to fertilize an egg.

Let’s look at some common misconceptions you may have heard about how not to get pregnant. Continue reading →

Let’s Talk Contraception: Birth Control and Travel — How to Stay on Schedule

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beachIt’s summer and time for a much-needed vacation. But will crossing time zones require you to recalculate when you need to take your daily birth control pill? With a little pre-planning, you can enjoy a trip far away and still keep on schedule with your contraception.

If you use birth control pills, it’s important to take them on a regular schedule, usually one pill every 24 hours. But what do you do if your travel schedule has you in another time zone where your 9 p.m. dose is now due at 3 a.m.? You do have a few options.

Planning ahead can keep you on schedule with birth control and reduce stress while on vacation. Bon voyage!

One idea is to use a time zone calculator to keep taking your pill every 24 hours regardless of the local time. You may need to take it at 3 a.m. while on your trip, but when you return home, you will still be on your regular schedule of 9 p.m. A good way to keep on schedule this way is to have a clock or watch with you set to stay on your time zone at home so you are able to keep track of the correct time to take your pill. An alarm at the right time can be extremely helpful if you do have to take it in the middle of the night. Continue reading →