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‘Flower of the body’: menstrual experiences and needs of young adolescent women with cerebral palsy in Bangladesh, and their mothers providing menstrual support
BACKGROUND: This study offers voice to young adolescent women with cerebral palsy (CP) in Bangladesh as they describe their menstrual experiences and needs, and their mothers providing menstrual support. METHOD: Semi-structured focus groups with adolescents with CP, and separately their mother. Data...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7395369/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32738885 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-020-01032-3 |
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author | Power, R. Wiley, K. Muhit, M. Heanoy, E. Karim, T. Badawi, N. Khandaker, G. |
author_facet | Power, R. Wiley, K. Muhit, M. Heanoy, E. Karim, T. Badawi, N. Khandaker, G. |
author_sort | Power, R. |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: This study offers voice to young adolescent women with cerebral palsy (CP) in Bangladesh as they describe their menstrual experiences and needs, and their mothers providing menstrual support. METHOD: Semi-structured focus groups with adolescents with CP, and separately their mother. Data was analysed using a material discursive framework and drawing on feminist disability theory. Participants were recruited from the Bangladesh CP Register (BCPR); a population-based surveillance of children and adolescents with CP in rural Bangladesh. RESULTS: Participants were 45 women including 12 female adolescents with CP and 33 female caregivers. Participants reported a wide range of experiences and needs; menarche acted as a gateway to menstrual information although for some a discourse of silence prevailed due to exclusion from peer and familial networks. Menstruation was discursively constructed as a sign of ‘female maturation’ marked by an expectation of ‘independence’, required for acceptance into socially valued adult roles, and was positioned alongside increased vulnerability to sexual abuse. Young adolescent women with CP were expected to ‘quietly endure’ the material aspects of menstruation although unmanaged pain and distress were described. Mothers reported an imperative for meeting their adolescent’s menstrual needs however this role was discursively positioned as ‘painful’, ‘irritating’ and ‘shameful’, in part due to an absence of affordable, functional menstrual resources. CONCLUSION: The findings of the present study provide motivation for disability services in Bangladesh to account for the menstrual needs of young adolescent women with CP within service delivery through strategies such as providing menstrual education and by embedding value in constructs such as ‘interdependence’. Moreover, interventions focused on alleviating menstrual pain among young adolescent women with CP as well as those targeted to alleviate distress among mothers providing menstrual care are required. Finally, policy responses are required to ensure that ‘inclusive development’ considers the needs of menstruating women with disability. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7395369 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-73953692020-08-05 ‘Flower of the body’: menstrual experiences and needs of young adolescent women with cerebral palsy in Bangladesh, and their mothers providing menstrual support Power, R. Wiley, K. Muhit, M. Heanoy, E. Karim, T. Badawi, N. Khandaker, G. BMC Womens Health Research Article BACKGROUND: This study offers voice to young adolescent women with cerebral palsy (CP) in Bangladesh as they describe their menstrual experiences and needs, and their mothers providing menstrual support. METHOD: Semi-structured focus groups with adolescents with CP, and separately their mother. Data was analysed using a material discursive framework and drawing on feminist disability theory. Participants were recruited from the Bangladesh CP Register (BCPR); a population-based surveillance of children and adolescents with CP in rural Bangladesh. RESULTS: Participants were 45 women including 12 female adolescents with CP and 33 female caregivers. Participants reported a wide range of experiences and needs; menarche acted as a gateway to menstrual information although for some a discourse of silence prevailed due to exclusion from peer and familial networks. Menstruation was discursively constructed as a sign of ‘female maturation’ marked by an expectation of ‘independence’, required for acceptance into socially valued adult roles, and was positioned alongside increased vulnerability to sexual abuse. Young adolescent women with CP were expected to ‘quietly endure’ the material aspects of menstruation although unmanaged pain and distress were described. Mothers reported an imperative for meeting their adolescent’s menstrual needs however this role was discursively positioned as ‘painful’, ‘irritating’ and ‘shameful’, in part due to an absence of affordable, functional menstrual resources. CONCLUSION: The findings of the present study provide motivation for disability services in Bangladesh to account for the menstrual needs of young adolescent women with CP within service delivery through strategies such as providing menstrual education and by embedding value in constructs such as ‘interdependence’. Moreover, interventions focused on alleviating menstrual pain among young adolescent women with CP as well as those targeted to alleviate distress among mothers providing menstrual care are required. Finally, policy responses are required to ensure that ‘inclusive development’ considers the needs of menstruating women with disability. BioMed Central 2020-08-01 /pmc/articles/PMC7395369/ /pubmed/32738885 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-020-01032-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Power, R. Wiley, K. Muhit, M. Heanoy, E. Karim, T. Badawi, N. Khandaker, G. ‘Flower of the body’: menstrual experiences and needs of young adolescent women with cerebral palsy in Bangladesh, and their mothers providing menstrual support |
title | ‘Flower of the body’: menstrual experiences and needs of young adolescent women with cerebral palsy in Bangladesh, and their mothers providing menstrual support |
title_full | ‘Flower of the body’: menstrual experiences and needs of young adolescent women with cerebral palsy in Bangladesh, and their mothers providing menstrual support |
title_fullStr | ‘Flower of the body’: menstrual experiences and needs of young adolescent women with cerebral palsy in Bangladesh, and their mothers providing menstrual support |
title_full_unstemmed | ‘Flower of the body’: menstrual experiences and needs of young adolescent women with cerebral palsy in Bangladesh, and their mothers providing menstrual support |
title_short | ‘Flower of the body’: menstrual experiences and needs of young adolescent women with cerebral palsy in Bangladesh, and their mothers providing menstrual support |
title_sort | ‘flower of the body’: menstrual experiences and needs of young adolescent women with cerebral palsy in bangladesh, and their mothers providing menstrual support |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7395369/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32738885 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12905-020-01032-3 |
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