Its time we stopped fertility and pregnancy being the only goals for women's health
I started school in the late 80s and I can tell you that the sex education was BAD. I remember watching a video of a cow giving birth and the calf being yanked out. I don’t know what board meeting vetoed that as appropriate about how human babies were born.
Calling it sex education really cements the idea sex and babies go together like a horse and carriage. It’s weird to me it sits outside of the ‘normal’ curriculum like a bad smell.
I have a friend who’s child is 7 and they had a letter sent home saying that they were going to be running an optional class for the kids to learn about vaginas and penises - I may have paraphrased! The whatsapp group she was in went metal, with parents saying they weren’t going to let their child take part, and that is was lessons like this as to why so many 10 year olds were pregnant these days.
I would argue that many adults feel uncomfortable talking about topics like periods, sex, vaginas and penises, Instead of sitting with that and unpacking it, they go on the attack of how preposterous is all is that their children have to learn about our own body parts. There is nothing outrageous about facts, and isn’t it better to come from a reputable source rather than the internet?!
The reason I am wading in on this with no skin in the game because I don’t have kids - is because kids are smart cookies and can actually take on a lot more info than we think. Presenting age and context appropriate information to children about their bodies has a positive consequence not a negative one.
If we stopped lumping periods in with sex, we would give everyone a better understanding of the integral part they play in our OVER ALL health. We have way more periods than we will ever have kids. So if our periods were really only about having more humans, we probably wouldn’t have so many. Instead we would be like practically all other mammals and have one season a year.
Not ovulating when we should be in the height of our period careers for example is a bad thing. Not only because it can mess with fertility but mores the point it means you aren’t producing progesterone and this is needed for our overall health not just about having babies.
If we aren’t ovulating when we are meant to it means that there is an underlaying problem such as
PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome.
Dealing with a lot of stress.
Over exercising.
Hormone imbalances.
Fluctuations in weight.
Pituitary gland not signalling properly.
For whatever reason ovulation isn’t happening it needs to be looked at outside of the fertility lens, as this runs the risk of only those that want children to be taken seriously. While this is important it does leave those outside of that window wanting. Too young for kids - wait it out. Past having kids - your periods will stop soon and it will all go away. Do you see the rhetoric?
It is incredible that in 2024 the advice to get pregnant to sort out hormones is still being prescribed. Where some generations are trying to be more sensitive I can’t think of anything more inflammatory if I am honest.
Allowing education about the health and wellbeing of women and those that bleed be moved further away from pregnancy seems so logical to me, we are so caught up in keeping our children safe that we are omitting telling them the very things that will help them so much in the future.
If I had a pound for every women that has said to me they wish they knew the info that is in my book when I was young as it would have saved so much strife, I would be a rich woman! Fertility issues would be perhaps uncovered way before if we were focusing on teaching our young people the importance of charting, the balance of ALL the hormones in the body and how they interact. The importance of how to look after your hormones through your life. How stress impacts them. IMAGINE this information being given rather than the egg releases is or isn’t fertilised by sperm and you are either pregnant or you have a period.
We are so much more than that!!
You can buy my book Periods aren’t meant to Bloody Hurt here If you do buy it and read it please do leave me a review. It is so important to get them and let others know its helpful!