By Daniel Odeke

Menstruation is a normal physiological process and an important aspect of understanding women’s sexual and reproductive health journey. It accompanies women from puberty to menopause and is often seen as negative, shameful and unclean. Despite being an indicator and sign of health, menstruation values have often been overlooked by health workers, leaving girls and women inadequately educated about fertility and their menstrual cycle.

The continued silence around menstruation and limited access to information at home and school leaves millions of girls with little knowledge about what is happening to their bodies and how to manage them. This leads to a lack of confidence and autonomy over their bodies, something that is essential for girls to make informed choices throughout their sexual and reproductive lives.

Menstrual management is also affected by many other factors, such as limited access to affordable sanitary products and treatments, resulting in many females experiencing inefficient, uncomfortable, and unhygienic menstrual management. According to the Kenya Demographic Health Survey 2022 report, girls and women are selling sex to buy sanitary products, once again demonstrating the need to link menstrual hygiene management (MHM) with adolescent sexual and reproductive health and rights (ASRHR) for greater impact and to ensure safe, responsible and healthy communities.

Informed and empowered experiences of puberty and menarche lead to body awareness and empowerment. The ability to negotiate safe sex can reduce teenage and unwanted pregnancies in communities. Assessing knowledge of menstruation as a predictor and indicator of health can play an important role in detecting signs of HIV, diabetes, endometriosis, and cervical cancer. In conservative societies, menstruation provides a great opportunity to talk about sexual health and family planning because it is associated with puberty and physical changes and is a more acceptable topic compared to contraception and sex.

All this points to the need to enhance hygienic menstrual practices and raise awareness of young women’s reproductive health concerns.  These interventions can raise community awareness and promote open dialogue about menstrual hygiene. In reproductive health, MHM should be included and taken into account since menstruation is an important and integral part of women’s sexual life and reproduction cycle. Menstrual health is directly linked to other sexual and reproductive health issues for young women and girls, including early marriage, unwanted pregnancy, and teenage pregnancy.

Collaboration between sexual and reproductive health and rights stakeholders and the national and county governments is needed to ensure that menstrual health is integrated into community programmes and health policies. Young people need to be empowered to advocate for MHM and SRHR.

Daniel Odeke is an SRHR Advocate at NAYA Kenya.