IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON MENSTRUAL HEALTH HYGIENE

What is Menstrual Health Hygiene?

Menstrual hygiene Management is an essential  aspect of hygiene for women and adolescent girls between  menarche and menopause.Menstrual Health Hygiene is defined as;

“Refers to when women and adolescent girls are using menstrual management materials to absorb or collect blood that can be changed in privacy as often necessary for the duration of the menstruation period, using soap and water for washing the body as required and having access to facilities  to dispose of used menstrual management materials” (JMP 2012)

In addition to the above definition, Wikipedia refers to MHH as the access to menstrual hygiene products to absorb or collect the flow of blood during menstruation, privacy to change the materials, and access to facilities to dispose of used menstrual management materials.

Did you know that Menstrual Health Hygiene is a major health issue affecting girls and women of reproductive age Worldwide, and over 1.8 billion girls, women, and gender non-binary persons menstruate every year? Well, research done by UNICEF shows that these 1.8 persons across the World cannot manage their monthly cycle in a dignified, healthy way.

If adolescent girls and women are doing well in their monthly cycles, chances are high that they will stay focused in school or workplaces without feeling any discomfort but the opposite is equally true. Unfortunately, girls, women, and gender non-binary persons in developing countries have never faced many challenges as of today.

Before the novel Coronavirus 19 arrived in Africa, most girls and women were already struggling with a long list of issues such as gender inequality, discriminatory social norms, cultural taboos, poverty, and lack of basic services which often cause menstrual health and hygiene needs to go unattended.

UNICEF report of 18th.May.2020 states that the virus does not spread through feces or blood, including menstrual blood but rather from person to person through respiratory droplets and contacts with these droplets on surfaces.

Covid-19 introduced a new set of challenges on menstrual health hygiene. These needs can be worse mostly on those who are menstruating.

Covid-19 has shifted society to edges where not only women and adolescent girls are affected by menstruation but even men are involved here. It is a normal biological process that is experienced monthly by almost 26% of the global population. The virus has impacted persons of menstrual health not directly as of say instead indirectly.

Stress from Covid-19 can greatly impact the reproductive health of adolescent girls and women in society. When you are stressed, your body produces cortisol, and depending on how much your body can tolerate stress, the cortisol produced will affect you in the way that you will either have light periods or not says Dr. kollikonda on Cleveland Clinic https://health.clevelandclinic.org/topics/living-healthy/womens-health/. In this pandemic, the population is so worried, they live in fear, this deprives them of stress which later affects their menstrual management.

Malnutrition as a result of Covid-19 has impacted the MHM. The virus has hit differently, so many people especially girls and women in most developing Countries are breadwinners, they toil day and night to look for food for their families, this food is sometimes not enough leading to Malnutrition which affects fertility in women such as reducing fecundity during the menstrual cycle. Studies have shown that severe malnutrition in the 1st six months of life may be a long-lasting impairment that can not be reversed.

Supplies of Menstrual Health Hygiene and WASH facilities have been halted by the Covid-19 pandemic, as the virus arrived, there was a cut off funds from funding Countries, mobility was restricted and this made life so hard for women and girls to manage their menstrual hygiene.

Women are at the forefront of the COVID-19 response as they make 70% of the global health care workforce, in most contexts are the members of the household responsibilities to provide home care for people infected with SARSCoV2 as well as children affected by school closures. (UNICEF,2020)

In this way, women are in vulnerable positions to be affected not just by the direct impact of covid-19 but they are mostly affected indirectly as we have earlier highlighted.

Written by:

Maggie Olore