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Missed Opportunities: Menstruation Matters for Family Planning

Julie Hennegan, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Amy O. Tsui, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Marni Sommer, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University

First published online:

| DOI: https://doi.org/10.1363/45e7919
Abstract / Summary

Increased global attention is being paid to the importance of adolescent and adult women's experiences of menstruation in low- and middle-income countries, and the challenges these experiences present to health, education and gender equality. Although much of the focus has been on menarche as a window of opportunity for early engagement in young women's sexual and reproductive health, minimal attention has been paid to the natural linkages between menstrual health and hygiene and females' management of reproduction over their life course.

Author's Affiliations

Julie Hennegan is research associate, The Water Institute, Department of Environmental Health and Engineering; and Amy O. Tsui is professor, Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health—both at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA. Marni Sommer is associate professor, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Guttmacher Institute.