You may know how significant it is to choose the right sanitary napkin brand for managing periods, but do you also recognise the importance of changing your pad regularly?
Maintaining proper hygiene during your menstrual period is extremely important. It is not only required to keep you comfortable and fresh but also to sustain your health and keep away infections. The best and also the easiest way to ensure good hygiene during this time is by simply changing your sanitary napkins often. This is a healthy practice that not only helps to reduce the risk of period blood leakage, but also ensures that you stay protected against various infections including UTIs or urinary tract infections.
This may make you wonder how often you should change your pads and what would happen if you fail to do so. Well, while it majorly depends on your flow type, there are some other things too that you must keep in mind regarding this. Let us take a deeper look at this issue.
How Long Can You Use a Single Pad
As everyone’s body is different, finding the exact time for the change is quite difficult. Nevertheless, it is crucial to change your pad regularly to avoid leaks, infections, discomfort and foul smell. Although there are discrepancies among experts regarding the ideal time after which one must change her menstrual pad, most suggest it to be between 3 to 5 hours. But then again, it greatly depends on the amount of flow that you usually experience or are experiencing on that particular day of your period. Hence, make sure to only buy sanitary napkins online which correspond to your flow pattern. This is because those with light period flow would require a lesser number of changes as compared to those with heavier flow as the latter will completely soak pads faster than the former.
How Many Times Do You Need Pad Change in a Day
As a general rule, you must change your sanitary pads about 4 to 5 times a day. There are some important factors that you need to keep in mind that can help you decide how many times indeed you need to change your pad. This includes:
Flow
As mentioned before, if you usually experience heavy flow or are having a period day with heavy flow you may have to make frequent pad changes as your napkin would fill fast as compared to lighter flow days. In the case of the former thus, it is good to choose a sanitary napkin brand that can give you more protection to prevent leaks and take away the stress of changing your pad again and again. You can make use of heavy flow pads which are usually thicker and extra-absorbent to keep you dry and comfortable for longer hours. You can also use a tampon for optimum protection but just make sure to not exceed the time of changing it to more than 5 hours as it can lead to TSS. And this applies to period days with the light flow too.
Weather
Hot and humid weather can cause sweating and irritation in your intimate region even more than usual. This can lead to infections and rashes especially while using a pad for too long. Hence, it is good to avoid such problems by changing your pad frequently, every 3-5 hours. You must also make sure to use antibacterial sanitary napkins during summers and hot-humid days as they can greatly help you to mitigate the risk of contracting infections as bacteria tend to grow on old blood, especially in such conditions. The active funnels in such pads readily soak up period blood, while their top sheet remains completely dry to prevent the proliferation of bacteria.
Physical Activity
Just as it is in the case of hot weather, physical activity too raises the temperature of your body causing you to sweat more. Whether it is just jogging or a simple bicycle ride, it can still make things a lot sweaty and itchier down there, not only causing you discomfort but also creating the perfect breeding ground for bacteria. So, the sensible thing to do is to keep a change of sanitary napkins handy and regularly change them when planning to stay active.
What Happens If You Use a Pad for Too Long
There are several risks of using a single sanitary napkin for an unnecessarily prolonged time. Some of the most common risks are mentioned below.
Rashes
Rashes are typically caused as a result of something known as contact dermatitis. This condition arises due to any ingredient or substance in your pad which can irritate your skin when it comes in contact with it, causing inflammation, pain, redness and itching. The good news is you can easily avoid this by investing in quality pads from a reputed sanitary pad brand. Another very common reason for the occurrence of rashes is the friction produced due to the rubbing of yours. pad against your vaginal region. Prolonged use of the same pad that gets damp with use, tends to increase this friction and lead to rashes.
Period Odour
Some number of bacteria naturally exist inside and on your body, in the tissues, blood etc. When you use a pad and it absorbs period blood, it makes for a favourable environment for the growth of these bacteria due to the presence of moisture, blood and humidity. This causes bacteria to thrive and multiply rapidly, also producing bad period odour. You can minimise this problem to a large extent by changing your pads frequently and using antibacterial sanitary napkins.
Yeast Infection
While bacteria occur naturally and can be effectively controlled by maintaining hygiene and choosing antibacterial pads, dealing with yeast growth is an altogether different story. With damp, humid and biological matter (period blood) present in your vaginal region, it becomes a highly conducive breeding ground for fungal growth. Once fungi are attracted to the region it quickly turns to infection which can either just be topical or can also enter the urinary tract leading to a more serious infection.
Can You Wear a Pad for Long if It is Not Soaked
If you are wondering if you can go without changing a pad for 8-12 hours if it isn’t soaked completely, the straightforward answer would be, ‘No’. You can technically wear a pad for that long if it isn’t fully soaked but the ideal thing to do, as per experts, would be to change it every. 3-5 hours. This is to ensure that you stay safe from infections as discussed above.
Takeaway
By choosing the right sanitary napkin brands, changing your pad timely and maintaining optimum menstrual hygiene, you can stay protected from leaks and infection. They are also necessary to help you enjoy stress-free and comfortable periods. So, remember to change your pad every 3-5 hours and discard it properly in a dustbin. And in case of infections or rashes, consult your physician for the right treatment.