Yes, menstrual fluid includes tissue. It’s not just simple blood.
I’m still not satisfied because menstrual blood is much chunkier than a donated pint from your arm. Until they’re using mucus blood we’re still in the dark ages.
jennwiththesea@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Risk@feddit.uk 10 months ago
Eh - it depends on the test.
Laboratory tests for pure absorbency makes sense for blood volume.
Functional absorbency is always going to be so much more nuanced as each woman has multiple factors in play. You’re better off calibrating pure absorbency first, then carrying those results forward to study and understand functional usage.
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
I guess it depends on your goal: better tampons or better healthcare. Is the problem that you can’t switch brands and have any expectation of similar absorbency? Or is the problem that your doctor asks “how many tampons do you use in a day?” and thinks it will tell him whether you really have a heavy flow, because he doesn’t believe you and doesn’t really understand how periods work? Both are real problems. Both deserve better research.
Risk@feddit.uk 10 months ago
Both deserve better research.
Agreed.
Blamemeta@lemm.ee 10 months ago
But how on earth would you get period blood?
Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
Iirc, weren’t lots of women going to send their used pads and tampons to that GOP politician something something monitor schedule to detect abortions…?
I’m post-menopause and post-hysterectomy myself so I didn’t pay complete attention, just sort of cheered them on.
Anyway you could start by doing a study based on recording the real-life experiences of a large pool of women who self-identify as having “normal” periods. To set a baseline at least, by which to judge “heavy” bleeding.
Or a smaller pool who are willing to alternate cup and tampons to better measure capacity. I think pouring from cup to tampon would be inaccurate because pressure from the vaginal wall affects tampon capacity.
Urbanfox@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Absolutely. Menstrual blood is its own beast altogether. I often found that the mucus heavy days was a real blocker to actual absorbsion and often there would be a still dry but slimy tampon removed at some points.
Donjuanme@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It’s posts like these that give me sympathy for my wife and all the other women out there, reminds me to hold the door open from a little further away than I normally would.