Pink Pleasure Place

Aug 17 2009

Menstrual Cups – The Environmentally Friendly and Healthy Alternative to Tampons

Published by WOW

A menstrual cup is a small washable silicone cup that are worn inside the vagina to trap and collect menstrual flow. Menstrual cups are used in place of tampons or pads during menstruation. The cups are normally smooth for easy cleaning and can last over 5 years. The cups are latex free and hypo allergic.

The cups form a tight seal with the vaginal walls and a slight negative pressure on the inside forms a suction seal. The cups are also safe enough to use at any time. There is no opportunity for toxic shock syndrome with the cup (TSS).

Cups can be cleaned by dumping the contents into the toilet and washing it with plain normal running water. At the end of your period, the cup should be boiled in water before putting it away. The cup should never be washed with soap or chemicals.

Tampon Inserted (License: Creative Commons Author: User.Fabiform)

Menstrual Cup Inserted (License: Creative Commons Author: User.Fabiform)

Menstrual Cups in Two Different Cup Sizes

Two cup sizes, 25ml and 37 ml

Menstrual Cup (License: Public Domain)

The average woman will menstruate for 39 years, approximately 500 cycles. If she use 20 pads and/or tampons every cycle she will use 260 pads or tampons a year. That is a whopping 10,140 pads and tampons over her lifetime. Add to this the wrappers and packaging and every woman will end up creating with a small mountain of used menstrual products that are largely non-biodegradable

The cup is normally made of medical grade silicone that is post-cured to make it non-porous and non-absorbent. It comes in various sizes and colors. The cup often comes in two sizes, one for young women that did not give birth yet and a larger size for women over 30 years old or that has given birth already. The size is because the cup for older women is wider so that it will still fit. In older women the hips widen out and the vaginal muscles use their strength.

The INSTEAD SoftCup is a disposable cup that should not be washed and reused. It is made of the same material as the non-latex condoms – Polyethylene. Due to its size, it can easilly handle 12 hours of heavy menstrual flow without any negative consequences. The INSTEAD SoftCup also have two other uses:

Allow clean and dry period sex without interfering with intercourse
Provide a cup to keep semen close to the cervix after male ejaculation (fertility treatment)

If you are using an IUD (intrauterine device) for birth control, you should not use a menstrual cup. The reason for this is that you can pull on the IUD strings when you pinch the cup to remove it.

Normally the cup comes with a long stem on the bottom that can be used to remove the cup from the vagina. Theis stem can be trimmed to a comfortable size by the user.

There are no known side-effects to using the SoftCup.