Sports and Menstruation
May 28th is Menstrual Hygiene Day.
On a day when the topic of menstruation is often covered in the media, I read a thought-provoking article on Yahoo! News about the challenges facing menstruation in judo and efforts to address them.
Click here for the original article on Yahoo! News
When developing the menstrual cup, Murmo interviewed many different people about their periods.
Among them were athletes from several sports, including fencing, track and field, and artistic swimming (also known as synchronized swimming), who spoke about the menstrual difficulties unique to their respective sports.
I believe one of the main reasons why menstrual problems are not widely known is that there is a strong perception that they are not an illness and therefore can be solved by oneself, or that they are something embarrassing to talk about.
Recently, in Murmo 's My Period Vol. 003 , we had a swimmer talk about her period, and she talked about the difficulties and unique habits that come with being an underwater sport.
I have spoken to athletes in several sports, not just swimming, including fencing, track and field, artistic swimming (also known as synchronized swimming), and trail running.
For example, in fencing, both the practice and competition uniforms are white and tight-fitting, so if a fencer wears sanitary products and their period suddenly comes, the uniform can become stained with menstrual blood, and this can be noticed by others.
In sprints, you don't even want to wear pants in order to set a record, so sanitary products can be a real nuisance, and the sanitary products and sweat can cause chafing between the legs, which can cause pain in the delicate areas.
Women who practice artistic swimming often worry that their increased appetite before menstruation makes it difficult to control their weight, which can prevent them from performing as well as they would like. (Even the slightest change in weight makes it difficult to maintain balance.)
It's natural that there are individual differences even among people playing the same sport, but I think there are difficulties that come with being in that sport.
In this judo article, it was mentioned that coaches are working to change the situation where continued menstrual leakage can, in the worst case scenario, result in a player being eliminated from a match. I sincerely hope that in the future, menstrual issues in sports, not just in judo, will be resolved.
To make this future a reality, it is important to continue talking about menstruation and fostering a culture where everyone feels comfortable speaking up, so murmo will continue its efforts to spread the word.
