Your Period Volume and Flow
How’s your flow?
The general scientific consensus is that throughout their fertile years, most menstruating people who are not on some form of contraception or other treatment that may interfere with the menstrual cycle will bleed around 30-40mls, over 4-5 days roughly every 28 days (to give or take few days per length of cycle is completely within the scope of normal). This is considered “normal” menstrual bleeding.
What does this actually look like?
If you’d like a visual, 30-40mls is around 2-3 tablespoons of fluid. Menstrual blood is probably a little more sticky and slightly thicker than water by the time it exits your body and it can be difficult to estimate accurately once it has been absorbed into a pad or tampon or period undies, but generally, blood weight per volume is very similar to water. (As a side note, an interesting little bit of research into the difficulties of estimating blood flow by counting menstrual pads can be found here).
For those of us who use menstrual cups to collect our flow, measuring the volume can be a little more simple. If you’re particularly curious and wanting a more accurate idea of your own flow, and you’re not into cups, you could weigh your tampon or pad before and after use and do some simple maths. Generally though, a tampon should soak up anywhere between 5 and 12mls when fully soaked and a disposable pad around 5 to 15mls both depending on their absorbency levels. And for these volumes, we mean FULLY soaked, not just a bit messy.These estimates are based on some very unscientific “general consensus on the interwebs” so do take them with a grain of salt. Basically, if you’re only needing to change your pad or tampon a few times a day for 4-5 days, you’re probably well within the realm of “normal”.
But what if you're soaking through your products every hour or two and this goes on for 7, 8, 9 or more days (the fancy medical term for this is “menorrhagia”)?
You might also find that you feel like you have to restrict what you’re doing each day due to your heavy flow, you might be feeling particularly exhausted, and you may or may not find your period accompanied by particularly painful cramps or other PMS symptoms. What could be going on?
It could be a number of things actually, all of which really need to be checked out by your GP or Family Planning Clinic to start with. Your heavy periods could be a side effect of the type of contraception you’re using which can be managed by your GP, or as a result of a hormonal disorder like PCOS or Thyroid disease, the presence of fibroids or perhaps endometriosis or some other issue - all of which will require a referral to a specialist like a Gynaecologist or Endocrinologist (like us here at Elgin House!).
So there you go! Who’s going out to buy some electronic scales to measure their flow?
References:
The Victorian Government, (2017). “Menstruation - Abnormal Bleeding”. Better Health Channel. Accessed 21/10/2022. Available: https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/menstruation-abnormal-bleeding
Schumacher, U., Schumacher, J., Mellinger, U., Gerlinger, C., Wienke, A., and Endrikat, J.; (2012). “Estimated menstrual blood loss volume based on menstrual diary and laboratory data”. BMC Women’s Health. Vol12, Article 24. Accessed 21/10/22. Available: https://bmcwomenshealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1472-6874-12-24
Yahalom, S., Gupta, A., Dehdashtian, S., and Scheiner, M.; (2010) “Reliability of counting sanitary pads in evaluating severity of vaginal bleeding”. Annals of Emergency Medicine. Vol 56, Issue 3, Supplement S31. Accessessed 21/10/22. Available: https://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644(10)00721-3/fulltext#relatedArticles