Women with Learning Disabilities and Menstruation

Abstract

When I first began researching how women with learning disabilities experience menstruation, it was suggested that I was taking an unwarranted interest in matters that should remain private. However, the small body of work on menstruation that includes women’s own perspectives shows how important menstruation is, with profound private impacts and consequences that should be of public concern. Ditchfield and Burns’ paper situates the issues in the context of women’s more general mental and physical health and well-being. Menstrual symptoms can affect women’s well-being very directly. Barnard et al’s (2003) work in the United States found that women who report one or more menstrual symptom had significantly lower scores for all but one domain of a health status measurement (the SF-36).These associations remained after controlling for coexisting illness and for sociodemographic and psychosocial factors.