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Sanitation ‘secrets’ and menstrual hygiene management: what can perimenopausal women tell us?

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conference contribution
posted on 2018-08-20, 09:12 authored by Amita Bhakta, Julie Fisher, Brian Reed
An increasingly ageing population brings a rise in the number of perimenopausal women, who commonly experience changes and irregularities in their menstruation, which they wish to conceal from view and keep ‘secret’. The WASH sector has paid attention to the menstrual hygiene management (MHM) needs of adolescent girls, whilst the MHM needs of perimenopausal women are ignored. Using narratives provided by women in Ghana through oral history interviews, participatory mapping and PhotoVoice, and using a vignette method to engage stakeholders, this paper discusses how MHM during the perimenopause is affected by inadequate sanitation provision. Sanitary materials which fail to provide effective menstrual protection also raise related issues of access to sanitation, toilet and bathing infrastructure design, and the need for good solid waste management. The sanitation needs of menstruating perimenopausal women can be addressed through adapting existing hardware and software solutions.

Funding

Loughborough University

History

School

  • Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering

Published in

41st WEDC International Conference

Citation

BHAKTA, A., FISHER, J. and REED, B., 2018. Sanitation ‘secrets’ and menstrual hygiene management: what can perimenopausal women tell us?. IN: Shaw, R.J. (ed). Transformation towards sustainable and resilient WASH services: Proceedings of the 41st WEDC International Conference, Nakuru, Kenya, 9-13 July 2018, Paper 3069, 7pp.

Publisher

© WEDC, Loughborough University

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2018-07-09

Publication date

2018

Notes

This is a conference paper.

Language

  • en

Location

Egerton University, Nakuru, Kenya

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    WEDC 41st International Conference

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