Lately, the news has been rough. Over the past year, we’ve seen alarming rollbacks of women’s health rights worldwide. The gains we have achieved in women’s health and bodily autonomy are under serious threat.
The regression of reproductive rights reveals how fragile the achievements of feminist and medical progress truly are. This is dangerous and honestly frightening. But it is also showing the need to take immediate action. If we want an equitable health future for everyone, we cannot afford to keep on stigmatizing menstruation. We need to challenge the stigma. We need to reclaim menstrual blood, and we need to acknowledge it as a valuable health resource.
Menstrual Blood is not “waste”, it is one of the richest, most renewable and also most accessible biological samples we have. It reflects systemic health, reproductive health, and immune function.
This got me curious. So, I collected and analyzed my own menstrual blood. First I took a look at my venous blood from my small finger and then compared it to my menstrual blood. The following pictures show my menstrual blood at different magnifications:
Menstrual Blood 40x
Menstrual Blood 40x
Menstrual Blood 40x
Menstrual Blood 40x
Menstrual Blood 100x
Menstrual Blood 100x
Menstrual Blood 100x
Menstrual Blood 400x
Menstrual Blood 400x
Menstrual Blood 400x
Menstrual Blood 400x
Menstrual Blood 400x
Menstrual Blood 400x
This personal experiment showed me how much knowledge is literally flowing from our bodies every month. So, the potential is enormous. With methods we already know, the range of diagnostic possibilities is broad and it is still expanding...
For too long, female bodies have been medicalized, pathologized, and misunderstood. Menstrual literacy offers a counter perspective: it is about knowledge over one's own body, leading to self-agency, and empowerment.
When we reclaim the power over our own body through knowledge we can rewrite the narratives and open up opportunities for a fairer healthcare future.
Therefore, I collected all my findings and created a booklet "The Power of Menstrual Blood" as a tool for gaining menstrual literacy through knowledge. This is my first outcome of an ongoing project.
