Historians believe that Ancient Egyptians made tampons out of softened papyrus, while Hippocrates, Father of Medicine, wrote that Ancient Greek women used to make tampons by wrapping bits of wood with lint. Some women were also thought to use sea sponges as tampons (a practice still in use today!).
Much like the Romans in ancient times, menstruating women in the medieval era also made tampons by wrapping wool or cotton around wooden twigs. Pads were also used in this time, however, the materials were somewhat different. Sphagnum cymbifolium, also known as blood moss, was used for absorbing menstrual blood.
1800s to 1900: Turn of the century – From rags to riches? In European and North American societies through most of the 1800s, homemade menstrual cloths made out of flannel or woven fabric were the norm–think “on the rag.”
The age old question remains, how did women of the time cope with their monthly periods without the use of tampons or sanitary napkins? The most common form of sanitary item was the use of rags.
Menstrual Hygiene Day (MHD, MH Day in short) is an annual awareness day on May 28 to highlight the importance of good menstrual hygiene management (MHM) at a global level. It was initiated by the German-based NGO WASH United in 2013 and observed for the first time in 2014.
Before the disposable pad was invented, most women used rags, cotton, or sheep's wool in their underwear to stem the flow of menstrual blood. Knitted pads, rabbit fur, even grass were all used by women to handle their periods.
The first of the disposable pads were generally in the form of a cotton wool or similar fibrous rectangle covered with an absorbent liner. The liner ends were extended front and back so as to fit through loops in a special girdle or belt worn beneath undergarments.
Chloe Christos got her first period at age 14...and it lasted until she was 19.
If you're a woman younger than 40 or a man of any age, you will likely by mystified by the so-called “sanitary belt.” Before self-adhesive menstrual pads of the 1970s, disposable pads had tabs at each end which were attached to a belt like this one.
Perhaps prehistoric women did not have their period as often as nowadays. In times of lack of food, during pregnancy and the lengthy period of breast feeding, they didn't get bleeding. As sanitary towels they could have used supple bags of leather or linen, possibly filled with moss or any other absorbing material.
In ancient Rome, women made devices similar to tampons from wool, while ancient Indonesian women used vegetable fibers. Women in Africa made such devices from grass, and ancient Japanese women created similar devices from paper. The word tampon originated from the medieval French word tampion, or a cloth stopper.
What did women use before pads and tampons? It may be difficult to believe, but once upon a time none of these modern period products existed. Before the 1800s, women made do with softened papyrus leaves, lint wrapped around a stick, rolled up grass and sea sponges.
On average, women will have 450 periods over their lifetime, which equals 3,500 days spent menstruating. That's over 10,000 period products in one lifetime! Of course, each woman is unique so that number will vary, but understanding your cycle is important since you will have so many throughout your life.
Most women will have 350 menses in their lifetimes. Our female ancestors had only about 100 menses, due to constant pregnancy and breastfeeding. This means that therapies that reduce the monthly event might be more natural than we suspect.
There are varying views on evolution of overt menstruation in humans and related species, and the evolutionary advantages in losing blood associated with dismantling the uterine lining rather than absorbing it, as most mammals do. The reason is likely related to differences in the ovulation process.
Free bleeding has been used to challenge period stigma and taboos, to protest high prices of period products, and to draw attention to the environmental issues relating to disposable pads and tampons.
The initiative makes Scotland the first country in the world to provide free sanitary products, part of a global effort to end “period poverty” — or a lack of access to tampons or sanitary pads because of prohibitively high costs.
Arunachalam Muruganantham: India's Menstrual Man. Arunachalam Muruganantham was obsessed with making the perfect sanitary pad for his wife. After years of work, his invention has changed the lives of millions of women in India. Al Jazeera is funded in whole or in part by the Qatari government.
While Dr. Earle Haas patented the first modern tampon in 1931, tampons had been used for thousands of years prior to that by women across the globe. The Papyrus Ebers, the world's oldest printed medical document, describes the use of papyrus tampons by Egyptian women as early as the 15th century BCE.
The first reference to menstruation in the Bible, and likely the earliest historically, occurs in Genesis 31, which is part of the “J” (Jahwist) source of the Pentateuch. Jacob, having worked as a shepherd for his father-in-law, Laban, for fourteen years, absconds in the night with his wives and servants.
Although men will not bleed, nor will they experience all of the same symptoms as women, these hormonal shifts can have some pretty notable side effects, especially with mood and irritability. Some call it the “man period” others call it Irritable Male Syndrome, either way, it can be quite similar to a woman's PMS.
They were needed to provide comfort and privacy while working long hours. Then in 1931, the Colorado doctor Earle Haas invented the cardboard applicator tampon. Businesswoman Gertrude Tendrich bought the patent, produced, and distributed it, which was the beginning of the modern company Tampax.
“You might clog up the plumbing system and it's bad for the environment,” Kotex states, while Tampax says, “Tampons cannot be processed by wastewater-treatment facilities and they can harm septic systems.” Playtex is seemingly an outlier, instructing customers to “flush the used tampon or place in an appropriate waste ...