Breaking taboos to improve menstrual health
Menstruation is a topic most women do not want to discuss very open. Plenty of misconceptions and false beliefs regarding menstruation are still prevailing in the society, especially in the poor communities. Cost involvement to maintain menstrual hygiene and lack of knowledge, healthy attitude and practice lead to poor menstrual health causing physical problems as well as economic loss. In order to assess the social and cultural constructs of poor menstrual health in poor urban communities, a qualitative study along with a quantitative survey was conducted in three slums in Mirpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh by WaterAid, an organisation with the mission of transforming lives by improving access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation in the world's poorest communities. There are diverse variations in the perception about menstruation among the respondents of the survey, who are mostly women. A large number of women use cloth for cleanliness protecting the bloodshed. In many instances, clothes are reused without proper cleaning. Use of sanitary napkin is extremely low due to inability to afford them. Such unhealthy practices and inadequate or poor access to reproductive health services lead to various physical problems in women like prolonged abdominal cramp, lack of appetite, physical weakness, white discharge, itching, heavy bleeding which might cause anaemia and fungal or bacterial infections in the genital tract. There is also wide gap between the affordability of the families and the cost of available hygiene products. About three-fifths of the respondents mentioned that they will purchase hygienic products if they get it in a lower price. Findings of the research strongly suggest that targeted programme is extremely important in different levels of the society which could address prevailing malpractices of menstrual hygiene management. The following recommendations could help improve menstrual health of women in Bangladesh: * Effective knowledge transfer activities could improve prevailing misconceptions, social and cultural constructs associated with bad practices. Formation of discussion groups among women, young girls and peer learning strategy may work better in the slum context. * Girls can be provided with technical training on how to make clean sanitary napkins and provided with material to make them. Efforts should also be taken to produce re-usable products which will bring the price down. * Access to safe water and sanitation has to be ensured for all. Because, low access to sanitation aggravates the overall situation and is correlated to poor menstrual hygiene management. * As men mainly control resources and decisions at the family level, efforts to change their attitude about the importance of improved menstrual hygiene management may add value to the programme.
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