Bathing during a period

[Johannapiana]

Recently heard a rumour online that it's no problem to have a bath on your period as the water stops blood flow (no tampon required).

Never worked for me. AIBU this must be an old wives tale?

YABU - Yes this can and does happen.
YANBU - Sounds bonkers.

im not sure if you were meant to say disgusting or discussing.

Clots is a natural part for me during my menstrual cycle. It has also increased in frequency as an approach perimenopause. There was absolutely no need for your childish 🤮🤮🤢🤢 response to my BODY and something which I cannot help.

You can help the way you respond and perhaps need help if you find periods so disgusting

I don't have baths but do have showers, and my flow decreases

No, it’s absolutely fine to bathe on your period without a tampon.

Where have you heard this misconception that you can’t?

I apologise to one and all.
I am too victorian!

could it possibly be how the cervix sits? I know I have to ball my fists under my back when having a smear and have been advised by a few gynaes that my cervix is tilted upwards, I know when I get out of bed the morning of my period there is a huge flush from the gravity! I wonder if this is why some laid in the bath ‘leak’ and some don’t??

Modern science literally dictates that is not true

Yes, I can ‘free bleed’ at night and just grab some tissue before I stand up out of bed- unless I’m really incredibly heavy the blood doesn’t exit my body when I’m lying down.

But many women I know don’t find this-

I do have a tilted uterus and a high (hard to find) cervix apparently!

I can bathe and don't bleed until the moment I leave the water.
Was under the impression that this is a evolutionary leftover from when we needed to not bleed while in water, so that we would not present ourselves as such a tasty morsel to predators.

jeezo no it's nothing to do with that. Please tell me how your uterus knows that your vulva is sitting in some water and how it can close up and stop blood from exiting? It's literally just gravity. When you're sitting down the blood pools in the canal. Then you stand up and it runs out.

If it's gravity, please tell me how I've spent several decades washing out bedsheets plus bath towels of blood from my lying on them with my mega night-time protection????!!!

I'll accept the water pressure is the tell for the body, but it's deffo not gravity!!

Because you move around in bed I assume, plus you're lying there for 8 hours or so not 30 minutes

tell us how you think your uterus knows that your vulva is wet?

With my heavy periods, I'm not lying for an hour, let alone 8!

I never said any part of my body 'knows', and you know it. Merely that there appears to be a difference between immersion in water and not, both whilst lying down.

My flow is as heavy in the bath as out of it, so I don't tend to have baths while on. The bath is all a bit the death of Marat which puts me off

Like some other posters, my flow gets a lot lighter when sleeping - and it's not the lying down - if I have insomnia but in bed, it's still heavy

You said it was an evolutionary trait! Therefore there must be some kind of signal between the vulva and the uterus to signal it to close because the vulva is wet. Or how else did you think it would work?

Nope, I said I thought I recalled reading somewhere many moons ago, that it could an evolutionary response, the brain signalling something via increased pressure on the skin. Not parts of the vulva etc 'closing firmly shut' or the like!

Enough now, I have my own evolutionary traits to respond to (tea time)!

Never worked for me, always had to wear a tampon, and often wondered about this 'myth'
Would never try it in a public pool!!

What water pressure? Under a few inches of water in the bath, there is negligible water pressure (less than half a lb psi)...

That is not why blood is, or is not, leaking from you whilst you bathe.

Its your anatomy and to some degree, your flow.

Some of us will cramp less lying down in the bath and that'll reduce flow.

Some of us will have a fatter labia/thighs/etc and that will put pressure on the vagina.

Some of us will have a cervix at an angle that when lying down in the bath, lets less blood out.

And if your tampon is absorbing bathwater, it's not in far enough!

Ironic user name, there

I have heavy periods and don’t bleed in the bath. Little clots sometimes escape and
kind of ‘cook’ in the water ewww! It takes a while for it to start flowing again after I get out, so I do have time to get my pants and
pad back in place.

Quite!
I have apologised in an earlier post!

I've had loads of baths and don't recall much blood, if there was some it would be minor. I used to have a relatively heavy flow. Showers weren't ubiquitous back then so many didn't have a choice!

Depends on how heavy your period is I guess. It never stopped me having a bath. Would have to be quick when I stood up though!

Been thinking about this thread whilst in the bath!

Brace yourself if of a sensitive disposition..!
I have endo, not usually heavy but painful and clots. A hot bath helps. I actually find when I get a big wave of pain/contraction, a big load of blood shoots out into the bathwater. It's the sheer force of the uterus squeezing it out.

When it's not actively being squeezed out like that, I find I lie in the bath and there's a moment when I relax down there and water goes in and a small amount of blood leaks out. This is the moment, presumably, when not on period that my vagina drinks all the water in! I guess those who don't get the bathwater going in (including me if I just dip in the bath quickly and don't relax) find they don't bleed into the bath because everything is clamped shut down there! And as PP have said, when upright again gravity means the blood leaks out regardless.

I was thinking about this too much in the bath 🤣

I can't believe that 68% of (presumably) adult women believe their periods stop in the bath. The mind boggles.