T A B L E++T A L K

Did you have trouble potty training your kids? Share your tips and stories in Table Talk's Mother's area

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R E C E N T L Y

Thanksgiving
By Anne Lamott
If I can muster the love and patience it takes to deal with my mother, does it still count if my hands are trembling with rage?
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Turkey fry
By Jennifer Reese
An old lover taught me the sexiest type of Thanksgiving cooking and how to do something sacrilegious and preposterous to a national symbol
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Faraway, so close
By Debra Gwartney
Coming home causes my oldest daughter to withdrawinto corners, turn her face and back up toward the door until she can run awayagain
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"The Rugrats Movie"
By Andrew Leonard
These babies rule! A 4-year-old and her dad give the new "Rugrats" brand extension a bigthumbs-up
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Second Thoughts: A modest proposal
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Hurricane Mitch offers U.S. troops the chance not to show force, but to help others -- especially those we've hurt before
(11/19/98)

BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATURE ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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GO WITH THE FLOW | PAGE 1, 2
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"Fun" and "pretty" are not adjectives normally associated with periods. But Eve's views on menstruation are not exactly mainstream. Growing up, Eve says, she was taught to hide menstruation. "When you took off your pad you double-, triple-wrapped it in toilet paper and hoped your father never noticed. You didn't talk about it unless you were sick to the point that you were debilitated."

The pads' colorful patterns bring an aspect of fun to her cycle, Eve says. "I went to a bead store and picked some fancy stones to make a bracelet to wear while I was bleeding," she says, explaining that such activities are positive diversions from cramps and fatigue. Other women, according to Eve, water their plants with their menstrual blood (gathered from the soaked pads) and even use their blood to make artwork.

Eve calls these acts "empowering," and says they help women "cope" with menstruation. While there's nothing inherently wrong with these methods of dealing, most women would just call them gross. Although few may find it necessary to do more with their blood than flush it, Kellogg says women do need to get over their stereotypes of female bodily functions.

Chambers doesn't recommend anything so radical as blood art, but she does say that emptying menstrual blood puts women in better contact with their bodies and overall health. "It's a really good indicator if you're having a problem," she says. "Some women I've talked to, they'll use the Keeper, they'll empty it three or four times a day and it's like totally full. I tell them that's not normal; you've got to talk to a doctor."

Dr. Cristina Muñoz, an assistant professor of OB/GYN at Duke University, agrees that the Keeper can be useful for women who are bleeding excessively, but adds that these cases are rare. "There are people who are so anemic they just hemorrhage. For them, [the Keeper] might be useful to get an idea that they really are bleeding large amounts so they'll have an idea that they need to replace all that iron."

Proponents of reusable tactics also point to toxic-shock syndrome, a bacterial disease associated with tampon use, and the presence of chlorine bleaches, rayon and cancer-causing dioxins (which form in wood pulp during the bleaching process) in tampons as reasons to switch to nondisposable products. Web sites like S.P.O.T. and many of the sites selling alternative products devote themselves to educating women on the dangers of tampons.

The problem is, most doctors agree there's no serious danger at all.

"The vast majority of people who use tampons correctly don't get toxic-shock syndrome," Muñoz says. And although there are no recorded cases of women getting toxic-shock from alternative products, including bleach-free disposable tampons, Muñoz says the tiny percentage of women who use such products could account for the lack of cases.

As for the claim that chemicals found in disposable products are harmful to women, Muñoz says there simply isn't data to support or disprove such claims. "We don't know if those chemicals are risk factors," she says. "When they complain about rayons and dioxins, which are bleach byproducts, the theory sounds very good. They say use natural tampons that are made without bleach, or maybe all cotton instead of with rayon. But they basically have no data."

Elaine Plummer, a spokeswoman for Procter and Gamble, Tampax's corporate parent, expresses outrage at claims that tampons are dangerous. "I'm a little bit appalled when they're making that type of a statement. They're not basing it on good science. There are a lot of people I work with who assess the product for safety." The American Cancer Society backs up Plummer.

Muñoz does say there's no medical reason why women shouldn't try alternatives. She even recommends alternative products, including bleach-free tampons, to women with severe allergies or chronic vulvar pain.

With no overwhelming medical arguments against disposable tampons and pads, it's unlikely that many women will be eager to switch from mainstream products to reusable items. Even environmental and financial arguments fall apart under scrutiny. Tampons biodegrade when flushed, so the only waste comes from the packaging and applicators -- all of which is recyclable, especially if you use cardboard rather than plastic applicators. (Some products, like O.B., are applicator free.) The onetime purchase of the Keeper or cotton pads might seem like a smart financial choice at first, but working women may find it impossible to invisibly scrub or soak their menstrual devices at the office.

"Women just don't want to have to soak things overnight, wash them the next day -- they basically want menstruation to be as invisible as possible, which I guess I can understand," says Harry Finley, founder of the Museum of Menstruation, located in Hyattsville, Md. (Finley has documented the history of menstruation paraphernalia and advertising in his museum, which he created after noticing the different ways menstrual hygiene products were advertised from country to country during a 13-year stay in Germany.)

Indeed, the disposable products -- tampons in particular -- that flooded the market after World War I were viewed by women as liberating them from burdensome, often nondisposable, pads.

Reusable products "are a tough sell to mainstream women," Finley notes. Francine Chambers, despite all her optimism over the Keeper, agrees that the market for her product is small. "Let's face it. Selling the Keeper is not going to make anybody rich. You only need one." Not to mention, the market for alternative products is so small that few stores sell them and few women have even heard of them. (Almost all marketing and sales are now done over the Web, where the cost of advertising to a large audience is minimal.)

Lorie Kellogg, the Keeper convert from Los Angeles, says nobody she's told about the product has been interested in trying it. "I try to share the information, but people have these 'ick' walls that you can't get past," she says.

But Chambers says she's not bothered by lack of interest. "I'm not really in it for the money," she says of her business selling the Keeper. "Why does everything have to be about money? Sure it's nice to make a profit, but where are people's consciences?"
SALON | Nov. 30, 1998