Abstract :
Background: In India, several social, cultural, religious and economic factors influence menstrual hygiene and practices among women. In country like India menstruation is generally considered as unclean and there is a lack of knowledge about menstruation and its practices among women. Practices like isolation and imposing restrictions among menstruating girls in the family have reinforced a negative attitude.
Materials and Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among the reproductive age women residing under urban and rural health centres of Belagavi city, Karnataka.
Results: A total of 280 women have participated in our study. Majority of the women are in the age group of 20-24 years (32.6%). More than half of the women were house wife (69.6%). While more than half of the families of the women belong to lower socio-economic level i.e class III, IV &V (76.1%). 90.7% opined that menstruation is a physiological process, 83.6% were unaware about the cause of menstruation, while information regarding prior to menarche, 68.5% said they didn’t had any information, while those who got information, most of them are from their mother (42.9%). On usage of sanitary pads, 63.2% were aware about it. 30.3% said they used same cloth every month. Disposal of absorbent material, 53.5% disposed in garbage, while 16.7% reused them.
Conclusion: The study revealed that menstrual hygiene among large population of women was far from satisfactory. Lack of sufficient information about menstrual hygiene can be largely attributed to various cultural and religious beliefs and taboos.
Keyword :
Menstrual hygiene, Sanitary pad, Reproductive age, Awareness of menstruation, Menarche.