Tag Archives: period

#PeriodTalk #TwitterParty

Friday, July 12, at 2 PM ET (1 PM CT, 12 PM MT, 11 AM PT), Be Prepared Period kicks off year three of #PeriodTalk Tweetchats with a party – “Our 2nd Annual Menstrual Party.”

To the regular attendees of #PeriodTalk – I look forward to partying with you!

If you’ve never attended #PeriodTalk, or been involved in a Tweetchat, I encourage you to log into Twitter Friday (check times listed above) and follow #PeriodTalk.

Tara Bruley, founder of Be Prepared Period, said the following about #PeriodTalk.

We started these chats back in July of 2011 with the non-profit org You ARE Loved.  Continuing to host these events we’ve covered a variety of topics. Our 2nd year of tweet chats included the following subjects:

·        August 2012: Your TOTM: Time of the Month

·        September 2012: Back to School: Periods 101

·        October 2012: PeriodTalk Celebration – The launch of our Q&A forum for all things   menstrual (making PeriodTalk available 24/7/365)

·        November 2012: Menstrual Understanding & Creativity

·        December 2012: Menstruation and The Organizations That Care

·        January 2013: Puberty & Menopause: A Dangerous Combo

·        February 2013: Learning to Love Yourself & Your Period

·        March 2013: Endometriosis Awareness

·        April 2013: Pelvic Pain: What It Is & What You Can Do About It

·        May 2013: Be Prepared for Summer & Your Period

·        June 2013: Conventional Feminine HygieneProducts & Their Toxic Implications

As Director of Connectivity for You ARE Loved, I witnessed #PeriodTalk go from a tiny idea to the awesome outreach it is today.

I encourage you to visit Be Prepared Period. Read #PeriodTalk transcripts and visit the PeriodTalk forum.  You won’t be disappointed.

#PeriodTalk is about…period talk.

You can talk with some truly period wise women (and men), exchange thoughts and ideas, ask questions that have always bothered you and gain a lot of period wise knowledge.

Anything goes and nothing is too icky to discuss in #PeriodTalk.

Hate menstrual taboos?  We do, too.  Love certain products?  We do, too!  Have questions and need answers?  We all do!!  Just want to connect with others who understand what it’s like to menstruate? Well, what are you waiting for?  Want to share your experience?  Hey! We want to hear!

Come on! It’s going to be fun!  It’s a period party!

Join us Friday, July 12 and help kick off year three of #PeriodTalk TweetChats.

See you there!

(Be sure to stop by and register for a chance to win during #PeriodTalk!)

What’s a Grandmother to do?

Susan Stiffelman offers an interesting scenario in which your 13 year old granddaughter confides to you that she’s started her period and doesn’t want her mother to know. Take a moment, read, and see if you agree that her solution is period wise.

Your 13-year-old granddaughter tells you she’s gotten her period.

“Grandma, you absolutely, positively cannot tell Mom and Dad,” she cries.
You know your daughter — her mother — would want to know, and to celebrate this moment in her daughter’s life. You also know that your daughter will be furious with you when she finds out you’d kept it from her. What do you do?

You hold the secret, and create the space for your granddaughter to tell you about this new experience. You don’t rush the talk, and you stay lovingly connected to her. Eventually you may say, “Sweetie, I’m so happy for you. Wow! This is a huge moment in your life. I’m honored that you told me, and I respect that it’s your right to share this with whomever you choose. Can you tell me what it is about telling Mom and Dad that feels uncomfortable? What do you think might happen if you tell them?”

And then you listen. In the back of your mind, you’re looking for a way to help your granddaughter become comfortable sharing this with her parents, but you allow her to be ready at her pace. If your daughter finds out that you knew and didn’t tell her, you accept her anger and disappointment, assuring her that you will absolutely tell her if your granddaughter discloses anything dangerous.

Your Cervix Can Tell Your Cycle Day Count

From the age of 21, for the next 32 years I relied more on what my cervix told me about my cycle than what my calendar did.

Did you know that your cervix is an accurate means of knowing when to expect ovulation and when to expect menstruation?  And, that you can accurately judge your start time to within an hour of beginning just by learning the signs your body is giving you?

Beautiful Cervix provides pictures of an entire cycle, showing the changes the cervix goes through and provides comments.

If you are not aware of the changes your cervix goes through each day of your cycle, or wish to know when to expect your fertile days and your period’s please take a few minutes and visit the site, look at the pictures, read the information provided.

This is period wise information that you should not be without!

 

 

Menstrual Facts: 12 Things You May Not Know About Your Period

On February 12, 2013, Christina Huffington posted an absolutely wonderful piece entitled “Menstrual Facts: Twelve Things You May Not Know About Your Period”.

I became aware of it shortly after it posted and wondered how I could incorporate it into PeriodWise without plagiarizing.  Oh, how I wanted to claim what she had written as my own.  :)

Others had placed bits and pieces on their blogs, some with links to the original work…others leaving the reader to assume it originated with them.

I was in a quandary as to what to do and how to do.

After all, it contains great period wise information – and is well worth sharing.

Two comments lead into her Twelve Things:

  1. If you want to view VICE’s 2012 photo series “There Will Be Blood,” you have to confirm you are over 18 years old. The series is neither violent — as its title might imply — nor sexualized, so why the NSFW label? Because the photographer, Emma Arvida Bystrom, captured women visibly menstruating while engaging in otherwise ordinary daily tasks. Your period, as HuffPost Women Associate Editor Emma Gray put it, is something that we’re taught “should be covered, hidden and cleaned up.” 
  2. That may be why some women don’t seem to know important details about how their bodies work. For instance, a 2012 Australian survey found that only “13 percent of women could correctly answer which days of their menstrual cycle they were fertile.”

(I had seen VICE’s 2012 photo series “There Will Be Blood” last year before PeriodWise began – awesome pictures – and had forgotten about it.  If you’ve not seen the pictures, I encourage you to do so.)

I’ll admit, I was surprised by the Australian survey’s findings that only 13% of women could correctly answer which days of their cycle they are fertile.  I wonder…how period wise are my readers? Do YOU know which days of your cycle you are fertile/ovulate? Do YOU know how to know your fertile days?

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t learn something new about menstruation, the menstrual cycle or participants in it (female AND male).

Christina Huffington‘s “Twelve Things You May Not Know About Your Period” follows.  Take a moment and read through the list.  You might learn something.  I did.

Twelve Things You May Not Know About Your Period – by Christina Huffington

1. You can get pregnant on your period. Yes, it is highly unlikely but it’s not impossible so don’t use menstruating as an excuse not to use protection.

2. You are most fertile during — and around — ovulation. Ovulation — the release of an egg from an ovary — typically happens midway through a woman’s cycle. Ovulation calculators are helpful in tracking your cycle.

3. Irregular periods can mean any number of things. Irregular menstruation — whether in the form of missing a period, spotting between periods or a period lasting more than seven days — can be caused by everything from extreme weight loss or stress to pregnancy to the use of certain drugs to serious illnesses like uterine cancer. Consult your doctor if you are concerned about an irregular period.

4. Walt Disney made a movie about it. In 1946, Disney released The Story Of Menstruation as an educational aid for sex ed classes. It is rumored that the film was the first to use the word “vagina.” Betcha didn’t expect that from the pretty princess factory!

5. The average period releases less than a cup of blood. Complain about heavy flow all you want, but the fact is that most women lose between a few tablespoons and a cup each month. This is not to say that Tampax ‘super plus’ are not sometimes necessary.

6. Menstruation by any other name is still menstruation. Remember in middle school when you were embarrassed to say you were on your period so you and your friends made up code names? No? Uh, well… Code names through the ages include Crimson Tide, TOM (time of the month), Elmo riding the cotton pony, Aunt Flo, the rag and the, er, crime scene.

7. Views on period sex vary. We know sexual preference is individual — there’s a spectrum on everything from preferred gender to preferred position — so it makes sense that opinion on period sex would be individual too. (This goes for both men and women.)

8. On that note, your period might make you frisker than usual. Progesterone — the hormone believed to potentially lower your libido — is at its lowest during your period so if you’re craving more than a Snickers, chances are you’re not alone.

9. No one knows if period syncing is a real thing. Yes, it’s very well possible that you / your sister / your roommate / your partner share more than just secrets. The science behind the theory continues to be controversial, but as anyone who has ever found themselves reaching for Midol and a pair of sweatpants at the same time as their BFF can attest, it seems pretty legitimate.

10. Menstruation is still considered taboo in some places. While pre-teen girls in America may have to endure teasing from their less-than-understanding male classmates, in places like rural India girls are told not to cook food lest it be polluted, not to touch idols lest they be defiled and not to handle pickles because they will go rotten.

11. Always was the first company to show blood in an advertisement for sanitary napkins — in 2011. They broke the “women bleed blue liquid” trend but the ad still only appeared in print. Guess the taboo factor still stands.

12. The average age a girl in the United States gets her period is 12. Girls are getting their periods younger than ever and it is unknown what’s causing the puberty speedup, with theories ranging from environmental factors to higher fat diets to stress.