Menstrual hygiene management and sustainable development

Menstrual hygiene management (MHM) is the process of managing menstrual blood, produced during menstruation by females from adolescence until perimenopause. The UNICEF and UNICEF definition highlights the need for “clean menstrual management material to absorb or collect menstrual blood,” and the need for these to be “changed in privacy as often as necessary” during a menstrual period as well as privacy and access to “soap and water for washing the body as required,” and “access to facilities to dispose of used menstrual management materials” (WHO/UNICEF 2012). Effective healthy menstrual hygiene management in this definition involves access – to information, materials, facilities, soap, and water and to dispose of materials but this is by no means the whole story. A number of sociocultural issues and taboos surround the subject of menstruation, making this a challenging topic, locally and globally