How safe are menstrual cups?
Help us understand how harmful microbes interact with menstrual cups and discs, and the potential impacts on our bodies.
$162,080
raised of $150,000 goal
Thanks to 603 supporters
100%
Thanks to 603 supporters
The Project
Menstrual cups and discs — reusable devices placed inside the vagina to collect period blood — are growing more popular thanks to being a cheaper and more environmentally sustainable way of managing periods.
But these products can be an infection risk. Despite being available for decades, there are just a handful of published studies that have investigated the microbiological safety of menstrual cups. Worryingly, these experiments didn’t accurately replicate the conditions inside a menstruating human body or how cups are typically used — and their findings contradict each other!
We want to investigate how well harmful microbes can stick to and grow on menstrual cups and discs under the conditions they encounter inside our bodies and in our day to day lives. Raising $150,000 will let us get into the lab and spend the next year testing a bunch of cups and discs made of different materials and across a wide price range.
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About Period People Aotearoa
Period People Aotearoa is a women’s health research programme led by an all-women group of transdisciplinary academics. We’re combining community lived experience with expertise in scientific, creative, and collaborative research to better understand the impacts of reusable period products on our bodies. We envision a future where women+ (anyone who has a period, including trans, non-binary and intersex people/those with sex differences) are able to make safe and comfortable choices about their period products, confident that they are sustainable for the planet and safe for their body
Thanks to our generous supporters
Allan McPherson
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