Menstrual pattern among school girls with special reference to determinants of amount of menstrual blood loss: A cross-sectional study in Jaipur city
Abstract
Menstruation had many tremendous psychological response in adolescent. And there are many myths prevalent regarding menstruation. So this study was conducted with the aim to study menstrual pattern in adolescent school going girls and association of menstrual blood flow with their BMI, diet, sports activities and gadgets. This study is a descriptive type of cross-sectional study in which adolescent girls who attained menarche were included. Present study was carried out on in government schools Jaipur City (Rajasthan) on 1233 girls aged between 13 to 19 years. BMI was significantly associated with amount of blood loss. Girls whose BMI was <18.5 kg/m2 or underweight had moderate to severe degree of dysmenorrhoea compare to those BMI 18.5-24.9 kg/m2. Proportion of girls involved in sports activities were having less amount of blood loss compared to those who were leading sedentary life. B So it can be concluded that BMI has direct co-relation with menstrual blood loss; the girls involved in sports had less amount of menstrual blood loss.
Keywords
Download Options
Introduction
Adolescence is a crucial periods of transition from childhood to adulthood. Maximum amount of physical, psychological and behavioural changes takes place in these years. For girls, it is the periods of extreme stress and strain. 1
Adolescence is the period of life beginning with the appearance of secondary sexual characters and terminated with cessation of somatic growth2 . The five important physical changes are evident during puberty i.e. beginning of growth spurt, breast budding (thelarche), pubic and axillary hair growth (adrenarche), peak growth in height and onset of menses (menarche). 3,4 Ovaries enlarge and primordial follicles start growing into graffian follicles under hypothalamic and gonadotropin stimulus. Graffian follicles mature and oestrogen is secreted by granulosa cells. Oestrogen receptors are formed in target tissues and this hormone brings changes in breasts and genital organs. Menstruation and final growth spurt occurs only after secondary sexual characters are fully developed in most cases.
Menarche and menstruation are bound to elicit tremendous psychological response in them. Obesity, malnutrition, emotional stress and sedentary life affect menstrual regularity, blood flow, interval between menstruation and pain during menstruation adversely5 .
Therefore this present study is aimed to study the pattern of menstruation & determinants of amount of blood loss during menstruation.
Conclusion
In this study mean age at menarche was 13.35±0.988 years with the range of 11to17 years. Mean duration of menstrual flow was found 4.82±13 days and 74.39% participants had duration of menstrual flow between 2-5days. And 74.13% adolescent girls had normal amount of menstrual blood loss whereas 13.22% had scanty amount of blood loss and 12.65% had excessive bleeding. 95.13% of the adolescent girls were menstruating at the interval of 21 to 35 days. Only 4.87% girls had menstrual cycle more than 35 days. None had menstrual cycle less than 21 days. Mean intermenstrual period was 29.64±3.94 days. In this study 56.93% girls had moderate degree of pain and they had to use oral analgesic to do their routine work. 29.03% of girls had severe degree of pain and were unable to do their routine work. Only 14.03% of girls had mild degree of pain.
On analysis regarding association it can be concluded that BMI has direct co-relation with menstrual blood loss; the girls involved in sports had less amount of menstrual blood loss.