Do you not think that periods could have been better designed

[Abigail47]

I'm 40.

I have my period.

The older I get, the more periods I've had, and as I look back, it seems like a long, long history of periods.

I remember all the issues they caused me:

Worrying about bleeding through clothes. Actually bleeding through clothes sometimes.

I remember being curled up in pain in a toilet at age 22 in my workplace. Having to get up and go into a serious work meeting with the whole department.

Pain so many times.

Not being able to go to the swimming pool when I feel like it, as I dont trust a tampon in a swimsuit, I can bleed through a tampon.

So much pain and cramps over the years.

I am 40, I was sitting in work today, having cramps, and in pain. I got up to go to the bathroom to change a tampon, and i was walking to the bathroom (a bit of a walk in front of a hundred people in a large department), again I was worried that I had bled through my dress as I walked.

I went back down and sat at my desk, and I felt angry at my male team mates who have never had to go through any of this once.

Its just so badly designed. Why do we get periods so frequently.

Why not just build up the womb lining and keep it there for a couple of months? What's the point of it.

Shedding the womb lining every single month causes so many problems for so many women.

I suffered quite badly throughout my teenage years then discovered the pill, had babies then went on the mini-pill and was period free for over a decade. Then the bloody peri-menopause hit, I started bleeding realllly heavily despite the mini-pill had the get investigated as I was having a period every 2-3 weeks. Now I’m every 31 days but o have lots of other symptoms that are making me crazy.

I once read something that suggested humans may have only had periods and ovulation a couple times a year rather than monthly. Then farming secured a more reliable food source meaning we didn’t have famine cycles, therefore could be fertile more frequently.

I'm getting periods every three weeks now aswell.

Best comment I’ve read on MN for a long time.

You forgot the inch thick bit. Horrid things.

Yeah I’d defo be another one for the monthly egg. Maybe god is female after all but she just likes birds a whole lot more than mammals. Maybe we pissed her off somehow and are now paying the penance of monthly PMT and flooding. It does seem more like purposeful cruelty than a lack of forethought in the design phase.

I have often said this - no intelligent being could have designed this surely?

Mind you, it’s always weird we evolved this way.

Many animals absorb it back into their body I think? That’s why animals aren’t wandering about bleeding everywhere or wearing sanitary towels.

Why us? Why just humans and chimps? How come other mammals don't have to go through this nonsense?

We really drew the short straw, didn't we?

Why so many question marks?

Can we petition someone re the egg laying?

I agree. Periods are a ridiculous curse on a woman. I do believe if men had to suffer them, there would have been much more research into them, and measures would have been taken many decades ago, to take away the pain and trauma.

Also childbirth! WOMEN could have been better designed for birth. The only safe way to have a baby is to have a C-section. We are designed very badly for childbirth!

The design was fine, until we started walking around on two legs.

You'd think evolution would not allow free bleeding as it makes you vulnerable to predators.

Also fed up with people assuming I'm stupid and that I don't know about the coil/pill/etc.

Yeah surely nature could have designed another bladder to hold period blood. It seems like there's room

As someone who has also suffered with bad periods, the fact we’ve not evolved to not have to endure days of pain and blood loss is incredibly frustrating!!

Surely in the modern world a monthly text message that simply states “you’re not pregnant” would be more efficient.

I went from having horrendously heavy periods with clots and cramping to just a bit of spotting and no pain after about 3 months when I was started doing daily moderate exercise (still overweight even), cut out junk and ate very healthily so I don’t think it’s a design flaw but could be to do with the modern less active lifestyle with less nutrient dense foods, and more of them, being consumed. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t experienced it myself tbh. There will still be women with gynaecological issues who this doesn’t work for but probably much fewer.

Early women would have been very active looking for food and had a limited diet with little fat on their bodies, and weren’t exposed to chemicals in food and in the air like we are. Even up to the last few hundred years. All of which affects hormones. Lack of food would also affect fertility so I don’t think they would have been pregnant all the time.

There are no words...

God must have been proper tired by day 6. Serious errors in design, not thought through at all.

I’m probably on the wrong thread to say this but part of me quite likes it. It sort of adds a rhythmic and cyclical aspect to life like the seasons or the tides - that slightly heavy bloated feeling in the days before then that emptied out feeling that signals the start of a month. I don’t get too much pain though and have always got on quite well with tampons. What horrifies me are the thought of those moon cup things. I bet I’d flick it out and spill it down my trousers at work or something. 😱 And do period pants not feel like nappies? Edited to say I do think a kind of tap release system would be good though.

2 words, mirena coil. Amazing contraption. Just a tiny amount of spotting some months, other months nothing. Also no peri symptoms

Not just a man, fucking misogynist.

Got one. Was amazing (although always still had light bleeding). Now peri and every 2 weeks.

Yep.

I agree with her on one point , that the current mass availability of over processed junk food with little nutrients, may make our periods worse.
And a better diet may improve some womens periods.

However diet is only one thing of many, that can affect periods.

Some women have fibroids, lower hormone levels. Lots of different things affect different women

Many women will have painful periods, no matter what diet they eat as well.

And doctors have just said that period cramps are equally painful as a heart attack.

What’s that supposed to mean? I’m sure you can find SOME, come on.

What have I said that’s not true if you’re looking at the OP’s question from an evolutionary viewpoint which is what she’s talking about?

I totally agree op.

All hormonal contraceptives cause my mental health to plummet and my cervix is such that they can't get a coil in it.

To lose a week a month to pain and bleeding is so unfair to women.

I'd also be up for laying an egg a month instead of this!!

You don't have to tell me , but you sound like you are young (20s /30s) are you?