Young NZers need early, culturally safe, period health education

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-01-13 15:08

New Zealand

Photo by Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition on Unsplash

Period symptoms like pain, fatigue, and mood changes are common among young people in Aotearoa, but they're often normalised, a new study shows. Researchers surveyed more than 1300 young people aged 13 to 25 about their period symptoms and knowledge of menstruation, finding that close to three-quarters had 'a little' or 'a moderate amount' of knowledge before their first period. Nearly 90% of respondents had period pain, more than half experienced heavy bleeding, and over a third had symptoms that bothered them for more than two years, while Rangatahi Māori were less likely to have received information on what causes a period and more likely to perceive heavy periods as normal. The authors say we need more research into Māori menstrual health and better, culturally safe, menstrual health education involving mothers, whānau and schools.

Expert Reaction

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Dr Mike Armour is an Associate Professor in reproductive health at Western Sydney University and an author of this study

Our team of clever Kiwis has been working on this for some time - and this should be the first of about 4 publications on this dataset.

"Some key findings were:
1) the rates of dysmenorrhea (painful periods) are very high (89%) in young people under 25 - almost the same as Australia.
2) Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, most (over 80%) said they didn't have good information on how to manage their menstrual symptoms - like pain, bloating, heavy bleeding etc., and many (~40%) didn't know anything much about their periods at all before they started having them.

"This leaves young women, girls and those who have periods poorly equipped to help navigate their menstrual cycles, and most importantly, poorly equipped on how to manage their menstrual pain and other symptoms effectively, reducing and reduce the negative impacts that we know occur in the classroom, university halls, sports and elsewhere.

Last updated: 14 Jan 2025 9:34am

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Declared conflicts of interest Associate Prof. Mike Armour is an author of this study.

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Research Elsevier, Web page Paper is freely available online

Journal/
conference: Journal of Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Auckland, Western Sydney University, Medical Research Institute of New Zealand, Principal World Endometriosis Organisations, New Zealand

Funder: This research received NZ$600 contribution from the University of Auckland School of Medicine Performance Based Research Fund for a social media campaign and to cover the voluntary prize draw for participants.

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