Period People Aotearoa
Help us understand how people use sustainable period products and their impacts on our bodies
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.
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Our approach
We’re building an inclusive, diverse, and safe community of people who use or are curious about reusable period products. Together, we’ll brainstorm a list of research questions about periods and reusable period products that our community wants to study. And then we’ll figure out how to get the studies done, with our community involved as full research partners.
Our first project
Menstrual cups – reusable devices placed inside the vagina to collect period blood – are growing more popular globally because they are a cheaper and more environmentally sustainable way of managing period waste.
But from a microbiological perspective, menstrual cups can be an infection risk, especially if not cleaned properly. Despite being available for decades, there are just a handful of published studies that have investigated the microbiological safety of menstrual cups, and their findings are contradictory.
We want to investigate the safety profile of menstrual cups under conditions that better reflect how menstrual cups are typically used and come up with a cleaning protocol we know works.
I was horrified, though not surprised, to read how menstrual cups have been studied. In what way are people like plastic bags shaking on an incubator? We believe lab tests should better reflect what's happening in our bodies during a period and how menstrual cups are actually used. Every donation, no matter how small, will help us achieve our goal.
Dr Siouxsie Wiles
CONTACT
Get in touch with our Giving Team
To find out more about how you can support Period People Aotearoa, please contact our Giving Team who will be able to answer your questions.