PAD A GIRL CHILD: Part 1

Someone once asked me in a seminar; why is is that nowadays it's common to have women with gynecological or reproductive health issues such as fibroids, myomas, cervical cancer, etc.? And my response alongside other contributions struck many.

Hello steaming Steemians and welcome to my blog. I hope todays topic enlightens many for better health and family life.

Let's travel🚄 a little bit back in time when life was less sophisticated and less artificial, when in order to have natural, rich and abundant farm harvest🌾 we had to rotate farm lands and use compost manure, when our mothers would use cotton cloths as pads during their menstruation🩸. Nowadays, with increase in demand in every aspect, man has been lured into low quality mass production to meet up demand and make more money💰. This hasn't been void of consequences and has particularly taken a toll on our health.
Our main focus today will be on the sanitary pad.

Over 62% of the gynecological diseases in women were caused by the use of poor quality sanitary napkins during menstruation.
-World Health Organization

A sanitary pad or menstrual pad is any sanitized absorbent item worn or inserted(tampons) by a lady during her menses to avoid bleeding stains. Note the word sanitized in my definition. This word leads us to our next question.

Most sanitary pads are composed of a very high percentage of fluff pulp(about 50%), polyethylene (DE), polypropylene (PP) and other chemicals. Let's look closely at fluff pulp;
Fluff pulp, is a type of chemical substance made from softwoods. It's the main raw material for absorption in personal care products such as diapers and female sanitary products. It's obtained by industrially crushing wood, cartons, waste papers of all sorts and from anywhere. The resulting pulp after crushing will have a blend of colors from the different paper and wood. In order to render it white and cotton‐like, this pulp is bleached with a cancerous industrial bleach called dioxin. The question is; What then is sanitary about the napkin?

Note that after all is said and done, these so called sanitary pads are lined with a non breathable plastic layer with the aim of preventing a flow-through or any leakage. Let's see how these all play to create all the discomfort our ladies experience when they wear these. Mind you that these ladies wear these pads for extended hours for about 3 to 5 days and for even longer days for some ladies.

Blood flowing out of the body is warm and it comes in contact with the dioxin in the bleached pulp. Being in direct contact with her sensitive and open genital organ, there is bound to be a reflux of this carcinogenic chemical back into her, not to mention when she is sitted. Equally, the heat from the blood when in contact with the non breathable plastic layer, releases carcinogenic petroleum chemical substances which are equally refluxed into her. Do you recall the warning of not getting hot food in direct contact with a plastic bag and the health issues associated? These substances will over time cause modifications in the female reproductive system leading to issues like alterations of the menstrual cycle, abnormal discharges, modifications in vaginal bacteria flora, cervical cancer, fibroids etc,.

The most painful part is, this technology🔬 has equally shifted the traditional use of baby cotton cloth napkins to diapers, being made with the same bleached pulp in the name of "cotton". This therefore exposes our girl children from birth with diapers to teenage years and adulthood with the pads and tampons. We would not therefore be surprised to have young girls nowadays in their late teens and early to mid twenties as opposed to yesteryears, with affections and complicated reproductive or gynecological health issues. It didn't just appear, it took time over the years of poor sanitary pad use to get there.

It may be be more insightful to go through this excerpt from the Health Shots blog;

According to Dr Aruna Kalra, mostly, sanitary pads are safe to use, however, there are a few ongoing studies that have reported the incidence of genital cancer with the use of sanitary pads that use absorptive agents like dioxin and super-absorbent polymers, because the nature of the dioxin (present in sanitary pads) can get accumulated in the body, and impact our reproductive organs, which can cause cervical cancer or ovarian cancer. "Basically, dioxin is a carcinogen, which means it promotes the formation of cancer causing cells in your body. The sanitary pads are bleached to improve their blood absorbing capacity, and this bleach contains dioxin,” says Dr Kalra.
The other problem with dioxin is that it suppresses the body’s immunity. This makes our vagina all the more vulnerable to infections. Plus, it impacts the production of reproductive hormones like estrogen which can be problematic in the longer run. Of course, you won’t get cancer right away, but in due course of time, there is a possibility.
^{Except Source}

It's therfore no news that, menstruation which is supposed to come and go unnoticed or hitch free, has become a nightmare😱 to most ladies. This period which is supposed to be her "pride" as a woman, is now characterised by itches, inflammations, pains and what have you.

Dear steamians, while we ponder🤔 on all these, in our part 2 of Pad A Girl Child, we will see what is to be sort for when choosing a sanitary pad, what are the healthy types of pads to use. I hope this was educative and will go a long way to create awareness and consequently reduce female gynecological health issues.

Thank you all for staying keen till the end.

Watch Out For Part 2