Period Conversation Starters

How do you talk to your daughter or niece or little cousin about menstruation when you feel it is an awkward and difficult conversation to have?

First off, it’s okay to acknowledge you feel awkward about it but don’t let that stop you from doing the needful because your daughter/niece/cousin as a young girl will be curious and young people will always find ways to satisfy their curiosity, she will turn to Google and/or talk to her peers and will find answers to her burning questions. The quality of answers she finds might be another matter altogether but the answer every woman should answer is do I want Google to take my place in the life of my daughter? Truth is, YOU are the major person who is responsible, not her school, not her biology teacher or peers or Google.

Here are a few conversation starters you could use to broach the topic:

1. Let me tell you a story…then go on to tell her the story of your first period. This is bound to create a relaxing and intimate environment for both of you to flow naturally in conversation with all awkwardness forgotten.

Now, I do realize that if you have never had to tell the story of the first time you saw your period, the prospect might be a little daunting for you but if someone tells you their story first, then that helps to break any inhibitions you might be having so I’m going to tell you my story…

I also do realize that it might be that you do not remember the first time you saw your period and that is perfectly okay, you are not alone, a lot of other women don’t remember their first time as well and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that…please feel free to use my story in lieu of yours as a conversation starter…

Here’s my story…

Long before I turned 12, I would have stomach aches periodically that just made me cry and cry and roll and toss and turn but I was always given paracetamol tablets for that. I got into secondary school and my mom bought me a pack of sanitary pads which stayed in my suitcase for more than a year. I got very curious, I would see senior students when they slipped pads onto their pants and I would watch them closely as they walked, trying to see if it made them walk funny. I got so curious one day, I opened my pack of pads and wore it, it felt uncomfortable but it made me feel like a big girl so the discomfort was a small price to pay. I went to urinate and didn’t take off the pad as I was sure it would collect the urine but I got a disappointing shock, of course it didn’t occur to me that blood and urine were two different components, I got very worried thinking, if this is how sanitary pads are then when I start menstruating I will be in bloody trouble.

Two days after I turned 12, I went to urinate and saw blood on my pants, I was ecstatic, ran back to my classroom and told my friends about it. It was a very exciting afternoon for us, they wanted to know how it felt. Did it hurt? How did it make me feel? No, it didn’t hurt and I felt normal, there was no difference really and then I wrote a letter home to my mother telling her I had started menstruating, a few weeks later, I got a letter back with a card which read, ‘Inye is now a WOMAN. Congratulations!!! From Mummy and Daddy.’ And I thought, OH NO! I can’t believe she told Daddy and when I got home for the holiday and learnt it was her colleagues’ son who had designed the card, I prayed I would never meet that young man and if ever I did, I prayed the ground would just open up and swallow me.

2. Start by asking if she knows what sanitary pads are used for? Have one in hand and show her how to place it on a pant.
3. When having a conversation about menstruation, here are some key points to talk about
4. Menstruation is a natural phenomenon that is supposed to happen to every female
5. Menstruation usually starts between the age of 10 and 13, sometimes it comes earlier or later for some girls.
6. What causes menstruation is the fact that there are millions of eggs in the ovaries of every girl, which she is born with and they get mature at the point a girl starts menstruating. Each month, an egg is released and it makes its way from the ovary, through the fallopian tube looking for a sperm to fertilize it, if it is not fertilized, it gets flushed out of the body as blood and for a period of 3 to 5 days, there will be bleeding which is the process of menstruation. This process is a cycle that happens after every 28 days and so every female gets to see her menstrual period every month.
7. Having a discussion on menstruation is incomplete if a discussion on sex and pregnancy is not had, if you feel awkward about it, acknowledge your awkwardness but have the conversation anyway.
8. Tell her, when a female starts menstruating, it means that if she has sex with a male she can get pregnant because when 2 people have sex, if they don’t use a condom to protect themselves, then the man inserts his penis into the woman’s vagina and when he releases his sperm in her vagina, the sperm travels inside the woman’s fallopian tube and if there is an egg that has been released from the woman’s ovaries, then the sperm and egg will meet along the way and when they come together, the sperm fertilizes the egg and the egg continues its journey to the uterus where it gets fertilized and attaches itself to the woman’s womb and starts to grow into a fetus.
9. Tell her as a young girl, it is better to abstain from sex altogether as indulging in sex may result in getting pregnant, which would disrupt her education and besides as a young girl, having a child is not a priority. If she must engage in sexual activities then protection is a must, no condom, no sex. The man might say, it is more pleasurable without a condom, just once but she should think about the consequences, it would last more than 5 minutes.
10. This is not an exhaustive list and you need to get creative and communicate in a manner she will easily understand.