Q: Are women’s periods clear and blue and gatorade-like? Because that’s what commercials always show.

A: HELL NO. 

Women bleed real blood. It’s red, sometimes brown; it can even be black. It can be liquidy and thin, viscous or even have clotted matter in it. 

The blue liquid thing we see in commercials was an attempt on the part of advertisers to “neutralize” menstruation and decrease their own “ick factor” associated with this fact of life. 

Thank you, Bodyform, for releasing this commercial that features real blood in it. 

A: We love this thorough explanation so much that we’ve decided to let Suzanne Sadedin (Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from Monash University) speak for us. 

Spoiler alert -- the answer will bum you out and it has something to do with aggro placenta. 

Click the link below:

We remember hearing this back in the day! What we learned from researching this was actually a *little* surprising:

In short, your period flow does not “stop” when you go swimming in water (or champagne or rosé or jello, for that matter). So -- FALSE.

HOWEVER -- something interesting does happen: 

If you’re submerged in water, the water applies pressure on your body. This actually can mean that water is pushing against your vaginal opening and kind of pushing the blood back in... like it’s arm wrestling your blood into submission (so what your friend told you is actually partially true!). 

HOWEVER ... all it takes is another change in pressure (say from coughing, sneezing, laughing, or just getting out of the pool) for your blood to overpower the pressure from the water.

If you’re looking to swim but are in the bleeding portion of your cycle, then definitely use a tampon if you don’t want leakage. Just remember to change your tampon after swimming because the tampon will absorb excess water and could give you an infection if you leave it in too long.

Thanks for the question!

Great question! 

Because tampons don’t include ingredients that can “expire,” per se, they don’t typically carry an expiration date (though some boxes do have a printed date on them). 

As long as your tampon supply is stored in a cool and dry place, they should last a very long time. Remember, though, that tampons are just fluffy puffs of cotton (or rayon) so if they’re in a damp environment they’re going to turn into a beach party for fungi and mold. 

If you have some tampons that you’ve kept around for a long time or in a damp place and think are questionable, DON’T RISK IT. These little buggers go inside you so it’s best to get fresh ones if you’re on the fence. 

Some people remember from sex ed or bio class that the human egg cell, or “ovum,” is much bigger than an individual sperm (nerd alert: specifically, the human ovum measures between 100 and 200 µm in diameter whereas human sperm cells consists of a head 5 µm by 3 µm and a tail 50 µm long... so a three foot sperm would have an egg that is 8.16 ft in diameter!).

SO -- it’s natural that folks wonder if women can actually feel their eggs passing through them. 

In general, the answer is: No. The ovum is still too small to feel throughout most of menstruation.

HOWEVER -- some women do feel it when they ovulate ( “ovulation” is when the egg cell comes out of the ovaries), and this phenomenon is called “mittelschmerz.” These feeling scan consist of a one-sided backache or a tender area that may last anywhere from a few minutes to a few days (source).

Most ladies discover dark clumps of tissue in our menstrual blood at some point in our lives. That stuff is most likely just some of your uterine lining (or “endometrium”) shedding and is nothing to be concerned about.

Remember that every cycle and every woman are different. Only if you’re experiencing something very unusual and/or painful for your own body should you start to get worried. 

Nope. How heavy your periods are has little relationship to how fertile you are. If you have super light periods, lasting only a day or two, it may be more difficult to get pregnant. But having heavy flow doesn’t mean that you will get pregnant more easily. Predictable timing of your period (meaning that the time between the first day of one period and the first day of the next is consistent) usually means you will find it easier to get pregnant than someone who’s periods are very irregular in their frequency. Never rely on the timing of your cycle or having a light flow to prevent pregnancy. Always use protection!