The Effects of Periods & Period Poverty
How are members of our community affected by periods and period poverty?
Periods affect hundreds of millions of people in the United States and the world every day in different ways. Some individuals experience bleeding and few other significant side effects, while others are faced with a slew of painful and irritating menstrual symptoms. We see this in individuals of all different ages, sizes, backgrounds, and conditions. Typically, children will get their first period between ages 8 and 15, and they will last on average from 3 to 7 days every 28 days. Some common symptoms of menstrual cycles that menstruators experience include chest tenderness, tension, bloating, acne breakouts, nausea, and body cramping, mainly in the abdominal area. However, many menstruators also have Premenstrual syndrome, more commonly known as PMS. This is the period from 1 to 3 days before a menstrual cycle when individuals experience other significant symptoms, such as dizziness, mood swings, social withdrawal, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, and more. The extent to which menstruators have to deal with these symptoms if at all changes with each person. Some experience pain with stomach cramps that can be remedied with a dose of Advil, while others face what feels like a perpetual pain in their abdomen, which is often coupled with nausea and frequent vomiting, and can only be treated by rest and little exercise. The other symptoms can be treated with things like heating pads for cramps, topical treatments for breakouts, or oral medications for tension and tenderness.
These symptoms clearly affect the menstruators of our community, but how might they impact those in poverty more than others? Around 16.9 million people who menstruate in the United States live in poverty, and more than 11 million of these people report that they experience period poverty, meaning they don’t have sufficient access to period products. If these people face significant or even mild side effects of menstrual cycles, they won’t have access to treatments for these symptoms either. In different situations, this could mean that not having access to medicine results in a young woman having to stay resting all day because of her period cramps, rather than being able to go to work. This could also mean that a menstruator experiencing insomnia and dizziness without access to medication isn’t able to perform well on a test they’re taking in school that day (this possibility becomes especially relevant when we remember that a reported 14.2 percent of college students experience period poverty!)
There are millions of different potential situations in which those in poverty might be more negatively impacted by symptoms of menstrual cycles than others, a fact that we have to be aware of when considering those in our community affected by period poverty. Personally, this reality has made us more conscious of how we interact with and support these individuals, and was also one of the leading factors motivating us to start an organization that could, even in the smallest way, alleviate these issues.
