2023-06-29 12:31:08
Updated Thursday, June 29, 2023 – 12:31
The analysis reveals that 35.7% of the women surveyed did not know very well what the rule was when it came down for the first time and 56.1% did not know enough about how to proceed.
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35.7% of those surveyed were not clear what was the rule when I downloaded them for the first time and more than half did not know how to proceed.
The menstrual education in Spain it is “deficient” and increases negative experiences about the rule. This is the main conclusion according to a study carried out by a team from the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) and the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), which also reveals that more than half of the women surveyed claimed not to have known how to manage physically the first time they got their period down.
This work, published in the journal ‘BMC Women’s Health’, analyzes the information received on the menstruacinthe desired one and the one that has the greatest impact on how menstruation is lived, and confirms that menstrual education in Spain it is still deficient.
“Menstruation continues to be treated as an uncomfortable topic What must be hidden and what is hidden is not talked about, investigated, legislated and does not receive the necessary attention. But menstrual health requires that attention,” says Sara Sánchez López, a researcher at the Ingenio Institute, a joint center of the UPV and the CSIC, and lead author of the study.
The study was carried out through an anonymous online questionnaire to more than 4,000 people, both men and women born or resident in Spain, conducted between May 2021 and January 2022. The questions addressed topics such as the education received about menstruation, the comfort with which one talks about the subject, emotions experienced during menarche, menstrual hygiene products, economic impact, and social impact, among others. others.
And their results are revealing: the four most common emotions reported during the first menstruation were vergence (23%), concern (20%), fear (16%), y stress (15%).
The analysis also reveals that 35.7% of the women surveyed did not know very well what the rule was when it came down for the first time and 56.1% did not know enough about how to proceed. On the other hand, there are numerous testimonies collected in this work in which menstruation has been the cause of ridicule or derogatory comments.
The report also finds a trend among the available information on how to deal with bleeding and the number of times they remember having experienced shame, fear, worry and disgust, suggesting that knowing what to do when you have your first period reduces the possibility of experiencing these emotions. “Unfortunately, only 5% of the people surveyed remember having received this information at school,” says Sara Sánchez López.
On the other hand, the data indicate that, despite all the social changes that have occurred in these decades, the emotions experienced during the first menstruation in Spain have not changed significantly from the 1950s to the early 2000s. .
Ambiguity of legislation
“The Ambiguity of legislation Regarding the current content on menstruation, it is up to the center or even the teacher to decide how much time to dedicate to the subject and what content to include. And, often, it is merely named in its biological function as part of human reproduction,” says Roco Poveda Bautista, also a researcher at Ingenio and co-author of the study.
But the lack of information It does not come down to the first rule. This study shows the need for reliable and accessible information on how to manage menstrual pain, symptoms of endometriosis and other similar disorders, or on when to see a specialist. In general, he concludes that more knowledge is needed about how the menstrual cycle affects the whole body and how it varies throughout life, including menopause.
“This study aims to serve as guidance for the creation of efficient legislative and social measures. It is a call to action so that education on menstrual health, deficient today, is incorporated into the curriculum, to guarantee that every person enrolled in Spain receive basic and reliable information on this topic”, concludes Santiago Moll Lpez, from the Department of Applied Mathematics at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and co-author of the study.
Together with researchers from the UPV and the CSIC, this study has also had the valuable contribution of Dr. Dani Barrington from the University of Western Australia, an internationally recognized expert for her research and activism on menstrual health.
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