The case was told of an eight-year-old girl that started menstruating, the family tagged her a witch and sent her out of the house. After four years of staying on the street and working with a food vendor, she got pregnant.
“She gave birth to the baby, who later died. The trauma and the death of the baby made her run mad. Years after she was seen roaming the street, her life was never the same,” said Mr Moses Adio, sharing his experience about myths and misconceptions on menstrual health and hygiene.
Dr Emmanuel Orebiyi, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Consultant, UNICEF Lagos Field Office, experience was different. He recounted being served moin-moin, which was not properly cooked.
“I was told the moin-moin was not properly cooked probably because it was made by a woman menstruating. So, what is the link between moin-moin that is half cooked and menstruation,” he declared.
In Nigeria menstruation tends to be an unmentionable topic of discuss, bounded by silence in the name of culture and blanketed in myths and misconceptions; yet, menstruation is an important issue for adolescent girls because it can have a negative impact on girls’ daily lives, and even schooling.
Low levels of knowledge and poor practices can have significant consequences on the health of adolescent girls, such as vaginal infections, fertility problems, early pregnancies and various psychological disorders.
The phenomenon of early pregnancy is an important public health problem related to menstrual management. “Menstruation is bound by silence, shame and myths. A lot of teenagers are getting pregnant because they don’t know how to manage issues like menstruation. For instance, they are told that unprotected sex helps with menstrual cramps and pain,” said Mrs Arinade Oyebode, Deputy Director of Nursing, Oyo State.
Mrs Oyebode said “They are told that when a virgin has unprotected sex, it will help the menses to flow easily whereas the partway for the menstrual flow does not have anything to do with sexual intercourse.”
She declared that many teenagers lack information on sexual education, including menstrual health and management, and this plays a major role in preventing teenage pregnancy, abortion and infections.
“All these have multiplying effects, so awareness on menstrual health and management needs to improve in Oyo State,” added Mrs Oyebode.
Dr Orebiyi, speaking at the celebration of the 2023 menstrual hygiene day by the Oyo State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (OYORUWASSA) in collaboration with UNICEF Nigeria Lagos Field Office said the current status of hygiene and menstrual hygiene management in Nigeria is poor, Oyo state inclusive.
According to him, 3.4 per cent of schools in Nigeria have basic gender sensitive sanitation and hygiene services; these are schools’ with usable improved toilet/ latrines with separate blocks for males and females, available always during school days and have facilities for hand washing and menstrual hygiene management.
Also, 74 per cent of schools are without access to basic sanitation services and 91.4 per cent of schools do not have disposable mechanisms for menstrual hygiene waste in Oyo state.
In 2021, researchers corroborated that poor management of menstrual hygiene and the occurrence of teenage pregnancies constitute a real public health problem in Benin.
It was a survey involving 230 adolescent girls aged 10 to 19 years old to analyse the level of knowledge and practices of menstrual hygiene among adolescent girls as well as determine the prevalence of early pregnancies as well as associated factors.
The prevalence of early pregnancy was 14.8%. Girls’ level of good knowledge of menstruation was evaluated at 47.8%, the level of good practices was 17.8%. Early pregnancy is more observed among adolescent girls living in couples, those in school and those living outside the matrimonial home.
The majority of the girls (67.4%) had their first menses before the age of 16 years old without being prepared for this experience.
Even then, in Nigeria, Miss Adenike Aina, said the stigma and misconception that heavy menstrual flow is because of incomplete abortion is terrible.
According to Miss Aina, “Even you complain that you are unwell, having cramps or heavy flow, people rather see you as lazy. They don’t understand your problem. Imagine how a girl will feel without being prepared for this experience and no one to talk to about it.”
Director of Administration and Supply at OYORUWASSA, Mr Popoola Olabode said menstruation is not a new thing and many things need to be unlearnt concerning it because of challenges that come with it such as fear, teasing and stigma, embarrassment, abdominal cramps, headaches, dizziness and nausea.
However, Mr Olabode said that treating menstruation and sex as sacred prevents teenagers being able to clarify information they picked from their peers or tell their parents when they first experience it or what is happening to them in their body.
Unlearning many wrong things about menstruation, Mr Adio said, has become particularly important because many girls now start to menstruate at a young age because of better nutrition. Also, many mothers are failing in educating their girls of menstrual health and management.
Mothers need to be more like Mrs Busola Olojede. “The first time I had the experience, she said there was no problem, and she hugged me. My sister told me that it will be about 2 to 3 tablespoons full of blood and it will stop after about 3 days, but I should keep changing the sanitary pad,” Mrs Olojede, a school proprietress added.
Without sound information, delivered in an accessible manner at the appropriate age, the onset of puberty can be frightening and upsetting. Especially for girls: The high levels of stigma and disgust associated with menstruation signal to girls that this is a shameful and taboo topic.
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