Again, this isn’t very common, especially if tampons are removed and changed regularly and you make sure to wash your hands before removing or inserting one. Like anything that is inserted in to the body from outside (including food) there is always going to be some risk of infection with inserting a tampon.
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Even if it does, the vagina is a closed ‘space’ and a healthcare professional should be able to remove it using special tools (I have had this job at one point). Although people do sometimes find they can’t remove a tampon, this doesn’t seem to happen very often. Concerns about tampons getting stuck, lost or causing harm seem quite common. They are removed by pulling on a little ‘string’ attached to them. The walls of the vagina keep them in place, where they can absorb blood. Tampons: These are cylinders of cotton wool-like material. If you are craft savvy, you might like to make them yourself. Some brands sell them online, or independent makers sell them through websites life. At least in the UK, they can be a bit harder to get hold of. Reusable pads are made from fabric and can be washed and reused. They usually contain some sort of plastic to make them waterproof and are single use – i.e. Pads: Either disposable or reusable material that is attached to underwear and soaks up blood. Different types of period products include: Usually (but not always) people use something to manage this bleeding. It’s made up of clots, tissue and blood – so is very different to the ‘fresh’, bright red blood you might get from veins or arteries from a cut. The bleeding is the lining of the uterus being shed. It’s bleeding through the vagina from the uterus, usually for a few days, most often once a menstrual cycle (more on variations and problem periods later). I firmly believe that the way to tackle this is to talk to all people about periods – whether they have them or not themselves…įirstly, let’s start with the basics – what is a period? Often, just bringing out (completely new and unopened) tampons and other period products is enough to evoke palpable – and audible – signs of discomfort in the classroom. Unicef recognises that period stigma is a global issue.Īs someone who regularly talks to young people about menstruation, it seems sadly alive and well in the UK. Despite this, I find that there’s a tendency to talk about period stigma as a purely foreign problem – often only acknowledging problems in low income countries. In my experience, people often have misconceptions about periods in the UK. Posted in Genitals: A User's Guide, Uncategorized Seeing Red…Įven though it’s an *extremely* common experience – there are estimates that 800 million people in the world are having a period every single day – this is one of the topics that often gets the most ‘yucks’ and discomfort in schools. If they had grown up in the fearless post-feminist, gender-stereotype-free utopia they would like to try to bring about, maybe this label would not be so appropriate… For example, Emma attended an all-girls secondary school in North London and still has the pink baby name band she was given at birth. However, they are conscious of this having been strongly ‘externally’ imposed through a life-time of social conditioning. They are comfortable with the gender label ‘woman’. Emma been interviewed about topics relating to sexual health by The Independent Online, Cosmopolitan Online, Ask Ella, BBC Sound’s Jacob Hawley: On Loveand even BBC Radio Devon! They have appeared as a guest speaker at UCL’s Institute of Education, as part of the ‘Gender, Sex and Education’ MSc module.Įmma’s pronouns are she/her or they/their. They are currently working towards an MSc in Reproductive and Sexual Health Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.Įmma is a member of The Candid Collective, regularly helping to run ‘ Genital Making Magnets’ workshops. They previously studied Psychology (BSc), also gained at The University of Nottingham. They qualified as a doctor (BMBS) in 2015 from the University of Nottingham, going on to begin speciality training in Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 2017. Emma is a co-author of School of Sex Ed’s book, ‘Sex Ed: An Inclusive Teenage Guide to Sex and Relationships’. Emma Chan works as a Facilitator for The School of Sexuality Education, delivering inclusive and sex-positive sex and relationship workshops, mostly to secondary aged children, across the UK.