Embrace change with the Cup

BETWEEN THE LINES  ·  MENSTRUAL Health and the health of the earth

Meet the Menstrual Cup? 

From cloth to cups — a forty-year journey through periods, products, and the planet we forgot to protect.

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I was petrified the first time my period arrived. It came in school and i had no clue. There was no warning, no preparation — just sudden, blood. Forty years ago, mothers didn’t speak openly about it until nature forced the conversation. Schools had their token talks, all words and no visuals, all facts and no feeling. Nobody told you what it would actually be like.

“No one warned me. No one sat me down. And yet — most women I know have a kind of same story. The silence was universal.”

The Evolution We Lived Through

We didn’t just witness the evolution of menstrual products — we lived it, body and all. Each transition came with its own mix of relief and imperfection.

THE CLOTH ERA

Cloth pads — washed, dried discreetly, reused. Functional. Private. Laden with effort. No shame in them, but no comfort either.And the heart cried for a change

COTTON & DISPOSABLES

No more washing felt like liberation. But leaking continued. Disposal was its own puzzle. And the cost — financial and social — of this “modern” product was not small. The transition was neither smooth on the pocket nor on the embarassing moments. It was still a hus hush journey.

ABSORBENT PADS and tampons

Better protection, yes. But with it came rashes, irritation, and a creeping concern about what those synthetic absorbent chemicals were actually doing — pressed against some of the body’s most sensitive tissue, day after day, cycle after cycle. For women in perimenopause, with changing and heavier flows, even these were often insufficient.

TODAY: CUPS & REUSABLE PADS

A genuinely different kind of option — one that works with the body, not around it. A learning curve, yes. But on the other side of it: comfort, freedom, and a clear conscience. One had to use it to know the comfort it brings in.

The Alarming Numbers 

When I served as President of Nashik Obstetrician and Gynecologist association, our team sat down with a seemingly simple question: how many pads does our city go through in a year? The answer was staggering.

~5 lakh Women of reproductive age in a city of 15 lakhs

180 Pads per woman per year (15/month × 12)

500 yrs!!! For one absorbent pad to fully decompose

 

That’s 9 crore pads from one city alone, every single year. Each one taking five centuries to disappear. Incineration uses electricity and produces its own pollution. And most pads don’t even reach a proper disposal system — they’re left in washroom corners, open pits, and roadside heaps, in cities and villages alike, wrapped in that same silence that surrounds menstruation itself.And the plight of those handling the waste is a different matter.

We were contributing to an environmental catastrophe and hadn’t noticed, because we were too conditioned to treat this as something to hide rather than something to manage.

Have You Met the Menstrual Cup?

“How can I put something inside?” It is the most common fear, and it is entirely understandable. Culture, upbringing, and inhibition are real. But consider this: the vagina delivers babies. A menstrual cup is not one-tenth that size.

Now consider the numbers side by side:

5 ml SANITARY PAD Holds just 5 ml before a change is needed — every 4 to 6 hours

15 ml MENSTRUAL CUP Holds up to 15 ml — three times more, meaning far fewer changes per day

 

Three times the capacity means fewer changes, less anxiety about leaks, and a day you can get on with. Friendly to your body, friendly to your pocket, and friendly to the earth — all at once.

The learning curve is real — typically one to two cycles. What’s on the other side: no wet feeling, no rash, no odour (because the blood doesn’t meet air), easy emptying and rinsing, and a single good-quality cup that lasts up to three years, needing nothing more than soap and tap water to clean.

Why it matters — beyond comfort

•        Lesser plastic waste accumulating over decades

•        No synthetic absorbent chemicals against sensitive tissue

•        No endocrine-disrupting materials that may contribute to hormonal imbalance

•        Considerably Reduced monthly expense after the initial investment

•        No disposal anxiety — public, private, rural, or urban

 

We are flexible about fashion. We change what we wear, how we style ourselves, what we eat. This is a change that touches our health — hormonal, dermal, reproductive — and the health of the soil, water, and air around us. If ever there was a fashion worth adopting, it is this one.

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“Change is the only constant in the world.

If you resist change you resist the very fundamental nature of life.

Take your change, lady.”

This Menstrual Hygiene Day — think. Ask. Talk. Choose.

#MenstrualHygieneDay  ·  #WomensHealth  ·  #MenstrualCup  ·  #Sustainability  ·  #BetweenTheLines