Period shame

[Novella12]

Hope someone can help me. I've always had some embarrassment/shame around my period. I hate talking about it, feel embarrassed even to tell my husband when I have it. I'm not really sure why.

Anyway, I had a baby girl recently. The very last thing I want to do is pass on my period shame on to her. What can I do to normalise it as she grows up? Does anyone know of any resources I can use to combat my own shame?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

I'm not sure how long you are but I'm almost 32 and it's literally only been the last year or two I've been able to talk about it and say the word 'period'. No idea what changed but I just suddenly felt more comfortable with it and less ashamed.

Always have some good tips etc here https://www.always.co.uk/en-gb/rethink-your-reaction/

*how old 🙈

What really helped me was this book: “Taking Charge Of Your Fertility: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement and Reproductive Health”. It made me realise how much about my own body I didn’t understand and really helped me understand what a period is and gave me the scientific understanding that takes away the shame!

I’ve always normalised it, told my daughter from about age seven about it in a gentle way, explained it’s just biology and lets women be the ones to carry babies. She’s seen tampons etc around and asked about them and I’ve told her. Start youngish and it will just all be really normal for your daughter

I think it helps to practice talking about everything more openly with someone if you can as I doubt this exists in a vacuum of shame (for me it was my husband and sister, but whoever you feel most comfortable with).
I started off talking about how pregnancy felt, breastfeeding, healing after birth etc and naturally I started to feel less weird about the period stuff too.

I think just answering the curious questions as they come might help as your daughter gets a bit bigger.
But before then maybe this?

Period: The new, updated edition of the hilarious conversation starting, genre defining book from the award winning BBC Woman’s Hour presenter amzn.eu/d/3qJCKLs

Thank you so much everyone, I really appreciate the help.

We’ve only ever had one bathroom. All my children male and female have just seen pads/tampons/washable pads as a matter of course.
They all chat to me when I’m in the bath. So they just know, I think conversations happen just as part of life.