THE TABOO OF MENSTRUATION IN INDIA- IS THERE AN OUT?

It's 2019

And millions of Indian women are still subjected to toxic menstrual practices. 

FACTS: 

1. Only 15 percent of women in India have access to sanitary napkins. The remaining population relies on clothes, rags, leaves, and newspapers as absorbents.
2. 66% of girls don’t even know about menstruation when they first start their period.
3. Approximately 23% of adolescent girls drop out of school when they start menstruating and those who don’t usually miss up to 5 days of school every month.

While living a normal life during ‘that time of the month’ is quite normal for women like you and me in urban areas, let’s admit that there’s still some whispering, hushing and hiding. Unfortunately, for women living in rural areas, these days also come along with alienation and shame.
Many rituals in India celebrate first menses and consider it as a gift. However, this very ‘gift’ of being able to reproduce stems unrealistic customs. 

The taboos associated with menstruation in India come as innately as menstruation comes to women. The general silence around the subject adds to the difficulty of the situation. Young girls are not educated about the science behind this biological process and nor are they provided with an environment that allows them to talk freely about their problems. There are still instances where women are not allowed to perform certain tasks and are expected to behave in a certain manner when going through their monthly cycle. The idea of being ‘impure’ during menses is ingrained so deeply in some women that they themselves refrain from performing certain activities.

Over 70 percent of women who face problems related to reproductive health were found to be practicing unhygienic menstrual practices. And even though some of them have access to safer products, they prefer using the same old methods. This entire cycle of silence, taboos, and orthodoxy keep pushing women and young girls towards greater health risks.

However, the picture is not all dark. Women are slowly raising their voices, protesting against ignorant rituals. The mainstream cinema is also portraying these voices. The government is prioritizing female health and hygiene. Be it the removal of taxes that were applicable on sanitary napkins, or making them available at lower or zero costs in the rural parts of the country, efforts are being made to improve the access to better sanitation. And the best part? The younger generation is not accepting things the way they are. Young girls and boys no longer shy away from the topic or shun its importance. They proudly declare that if they were subjected to or have witnessed any kind of differential treatment given to women during their menses, they would make sure that they would never behave the same.

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Millennials are Shaping the Future of Health Industry

Gone are the days when one had to leave the comfort of their house and pay a visit to a doctor to get their blood pressure tested. Thanks to technology,in today’s time, a touch is quite literally the only distance between ourselves and countless possibilities. So much so that the blood pressure check-up that you stepped out for can be done in a few seconds through your smart device.

Think about it for yourself, the last time you had a flu or a sprain, did your solution come through a doctor or a google search? In fact, even at times when we feel the need to go to a doctor, we end up searching about them online.  So when did technology and the internet start playing such a huge role in our decision making towards our daily health concerns? Millennials have changed our traditional approaches to everyday problems and our way of dealing with health care especially.

According to a Sales force report evaluating the generational healthcare preferences of Americans, millennials are more likely than older generations to forgo regular visits to a general care physician, likely due to the high cost of healthcare and the fact that many millennials have yet to develop some of the pressing health concerns that affect older age groups. The survey also found that millennials are more interested in using digital health tools than other generations, including an openness to video calling with doctors and accessing health devices through tools like 3D printers. It was also noted in the study that-

• 76% of millennial Americans value online reviews when choosing a doctor
• 71% of millennials would like to engage with their health care provider through a mobile app,            according to the same survey

In general, millennials are comfortable using technology to improve their healthcare experience, and they view the web as an important resource when facing a health crisis. From reading online reviews before choosing a doctor to consulting online diagnosis tools, the internet shapes many of the healthcare decisions for people in this age group.
The surge in the usage of search engines and websites that provide us with umpteen amounts of information on various conditions and day to day health related problems, is a result of the fact that millennials see it as a more comfortable way of dealing with problems on the go. Millennials also prefer to contact doctors over video calls and messages over going to meet them physically. This shift from the baby boomers approach to that of the millennials has created an entire new market of online presence of both- information as well as doctors on the internet.

These services are free, convenient, and widely accessible, unlike a trip to the physician, and they can be hugely informative when used appropriately. However what also comes along is the fact that millennials are particularly prone to misusing online diagnosis tools: 37% of millennials reported self-diagnosing health issues they don’t have, compared to 24% of baby boomers and 26% of Gen X-ers. What’s more, 44% of millennials reported worrying about their health after looking up health information online.

Another industry that bloomed out of the nature of the millennials is the industry of health applications. Whether it’s a phone or a watch, every device now offers facilities like calorie or step count, heart rate, blood pressure and the list is endless.

For millennials, wellness is a daily, active pursuit. They’re exercising more, eating smarter and smoking less than previous generations. They’re using apps to track training data, and online information to find the healthiest foods. And this is one space where they’re willing to spend money more on, hence the focus towards building more health focused applications and devices that can be integrated in daily life. According to a recent study, 66% of college students now regularly monitor their calorie intake, while 69% monitor their sugar intake. What’s more, now 50% want as much quantifiable data about their health as possible. This new, heightened interest explains in part why millennials are so attracted to technologies that allow them to access detailed information about their own health.

To quantify it all, mobile health apps are expected to exceed $3Billion in global sales by 2019, there are also over 100,000 apps on Google Play and Apple’s iOS app store, a quantity that’s doubled in just 2.5 years.

Despite the ever-growing market of health apps and devices, evidence that proves the working the effectiveness of health apps themselves seems to lack. The next few decades will witness a collaboration by both e-service providers, health care policy makers, hospitals and specialists to forge new standards within which safe, effective and reputable mobile health technologies can be fostered.

The integration of technology and internet with healthcare is here to stay and will just grow in the times to come. However that being stated it’s important that medical institutions lay down guidelines and also review the apps and devices being widely used today, to ensure that they are credible. 

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Awake During Surgery: Anaesthesia Awareness

General anesthesia is a combination of intravenous drugs and inhaled gasses that are introduced to your body before a surgical procedure to put you in temporary unconsciousness. But have you ever thought about what might happen if the anesthesia does not work?

Picture this: you are about to into surgery and your aesthetician tells you that you will begin to drift off to sleep soon. You feel your body go limp, and your eyes close. But, you do not fall asleep like you are supposed to. Your eyes may be closed but you can still clearly see the darkness behind your eyelids, hear the doctor and nurses talk, smell the medicinal scent of your room and feel the nurses nudge against the bed you are laying on. But you cannot move. You are conscious, but your body is paralyzed.

The preface above explains a severe case of a condition called anesthesia awareness. It is a rather rare occurrence and happens to only 0.1% of patients that are given general anesthesia. The intensity of the awareness varies from case to case. Some patients recall being conscious for only parts of their surgery and have felt pressure but little or no pain and other patients recall being conscious for the entire duration of the surgery and suffering an excruciating about of pain.

There are several causes behind this condition.

Type of Patient

• Age: Young adults are more prone to this condition than children or teens.
• Gender: Females are more likely to be conscious than males.
• Weight: Obese individuals are more likely to wake up.

Patient’s Condition before Surgery

• A history of suffering from the condition.
• Any medication the patient may be taking.
• Fear of anesthesia awareness prior to the surgery.
• History of drug or alcohol abuse.

Type of Surgery

• Emergency surgeries.
• C-sections: This is because anestheticians use a milder doe compared to other surgeries.

Aestheticians Expertise and Available Technology

• Anestheticians that are early in their training.
• Inadequate dosage.
• Failure, misuse or lack of the necessary equipment.

The repercussions of this condition may include leaving the patient mentally disturbed. The patient may develop PTSD and depression. The victims of this condition that recall the pain, noise, smell and taste can undergo months of suffering from nightmares, flashbacks, suicidal thoughts and may require months of therapy before they can come to terms with what they have gone through.

Watch this bone-chilling, detailed description of a victim’s experience with anesthesia awareness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aax2iPkChmQ to learn more about the condition, through a first-person account.

So, make sure you or anyone you know is in the healthiest physical state and calmest mental state before going into surgery. And make sure you familiarize yourself with your anesthetician and stay well-informed about the machinery they will be using to monitor your vitals and brain activity while you are put under anesthesia.

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