By Donna Kelly  

I received a media release last week from Central Highlands Rural Health  saying that they are partnering with the council to provide free access to  puberty education resources.  

As part of that they are also giving primary school students, in grades five and six,  two pairs of reusable period underwear and a wet bag.  Wow.

As a middle-aged woman I was a bit gobsmacked, one that we are talking  about this, and two, how does this underwear work?

I feel like I grew up in the last century, well I did actually, and when I was a kid  we never talked about periods. To the extent that when I got my first one, at age 11, I  had no idea what was going on.  

The adverts for pads and tampons were really subtle. It was all about riding horses  and surfing. I thought that if I got my period it just meant I would suddenly have  some sporting prowess.

I told Mum what had happened and she asked if I hadn’t already worked it all out. No, I said. No idea. She got some pads from the top of her wardrobe shelf and  handed them to me.

“There you are,” she said. Dad wandered by about this time and  asked what was going on. “Our little girl has become a woman,” Mum said. So Anne  of Green Gables. Dad kept walking.  And that was pretty much my introduction to something that would happen  every month for another 40 years or so.

The pads were awful things, huge and lumpy,  with a tendency to spill over at any time. So bathroom checks were constant. It’s  almost post-traumatic thinking about it.  

Change came a few years later, aged about 16, when a friend of mine said I should switch to tampons. She had made the move when she was just 14, she said. It  happened after she had sex in a football ground in Frankston with a random stranger.  

She decided “if that can fit in, a tampon can”. Practical girl.  

Not much else changed, so the research that most tweens and teens will continue to use the first sanitary products they were introduced to for most of their menstruating life, seems to be pretty true.  

Luckily, for me, I had very heavy periods and got popped onto a Mirena IUD  device, for both birth control and to help out.

It worked so well my periods stopped  altogether – which I was pretty pleased about.  I had a hormone test a few years back and it came back as nothing left in the  tank. All gone.

I told Kyle whose only comment was “that’s a bit sad”. I asked what the sad bit was and he said “you can’t have children”. Hmmm. I think at 55 that  horse had long bolted – especially after the conversation that we did not want kids  about 25 years earlier. Maybe he forgot that bit.  

True story. We used to have people tell us we would have made great parents but  I think you really want to have the children first. And I have had many nightmares  where I am pregnant, only waking up to a huge relief that it was just a bad dream. All  power to those of you wanting, trying or having children. Just not us.  

Anyway, it is great that periods, something that happens to 50 per cent of people  throughout the world, and should be understood by the other 50 per cent, are out of the closet and into the discussion.  

Mind you, the research bit where pads containing plastic and tampons ultimately  end up in landfill means it’s time to swap to reusable period underwear might be a harder sell. Cloth nappies again, anyone? Just sayin’  

Central Highlands Rural Health has partnered with the Hepburn Shire Council to provide grade five and six students across Hepburn Shire primary schools with free access to important puberty education resources.

To coincide with the continuation of CHRH’s successful puberty education program in primary schools, two important initiatives with the council will further educate and prepare the youth of the shire.

From July, Hepburn Shire libraries in Clunes, Creswick, Daylesford and Trentham have a display stand of 13 books recommended by CHRH as part of its puberty education program.

Students and parents from Hepburn Shire primary schools will have access to the books to learn about the physical and emotional changes associated with puberty.

In addition to the library resources, the council and CHRH have partnered to deliver the Reusable Period Products Program in all Hepburn Shire primary schools.

Following the recent success of the council’s Reusable Voucher Program, the Reusable Period Products Primary School Program recognises the significant waste to landfill that period products generate.

The program aims at an early intervention education, to offer students who menstruate an opportunity to utilise reusable period products from the beginning of their menstruation journey.

As part of CHRH’s yearly primary school puberty education program, grade five and six students in need of period education will attend a 60-minute session to learn about all things related to getting their periods and how to manage them.

Students who attend will receive two pairs of reusable period underwear and a wet bag to keep, supplied by a business based in Kyneton called Darlings Downunder.

Research shows that most tweens and teens will continue to use the first sanitary products they were introduced to for most of their menstruating life.

Unfortunately, this tends to be pads containing plastic and tampons that ultimately end up in landfill.

Clean Up Australia data suggests that over the course of a lifetime, a single menstruator will use somewhere between 5000 and 15,000 pads and tampons