How do teen ballerinas handle heavy periods?

[Anonymous]

Looking for suggestions to help 12 yr old ballerina manage a heavy period while at the studio. She has class multiple days per week and there are strict protocols regarding acceptable leo’s, so not a lot of flexibility when it comes to the period leo’s that are on the market.

[Anonymous]

Super tampons.

[Anonymous]

This isn’t going to be an easy answer for you:

In the olden days, they handled them by staying sufficiently underweight to lose their period. Hopefully you know all of the reasons that this is a bad idea- RED-S, etc.

Now, there are a few options. First, heavy periods aren’t normal. And I say this as a person who suffered through them from 13 to 26 and avoided all sorts of things and lived with insane stress because I couldn’t go 45 minutes sometimes without going through a super plus tampon.

Take her to a doctor and discuss dysmenorrhea and continuous birth control- if the concept of bcp freaks you out, you need to think of it as hormone control that will help your Dd live her life. Make sure she doesn’t have PCOS or endometriosis. Check her iron levels.

Continuous bcp changed my life but I wonder what I might have done or achieved had I not spent my adolescence worrying about period accidents or getting 2 hours of sleep at a time because I had to set alarms to avoid accidents at night.

[Anonymous]

Super tampon and thong panty liner? Can she layer her tights?

[Anonymous]

This would be a case where I would talk to the teacher or director of the ballet school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This would be a case where I would talk to the teacher or director of the ballet school.

Ask them what? Her class isnt over 2 hrs, likey 1-1.5 hrs. If she knows it is a heavy day, she uses the rest room mid class and changes tampon. If she is bleeding through a super tampon in an under an hour I think that warrants a doctor visit.

[Anonymous]

Have her try a cup, they are amazing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This would be a case where I would talk to the teacher or director of the ballet school.

+1 because even if there are other ways to manage it, they should do more to support the young girls in their care. A practice is not a big deal, you should be able to wear period products. They may not even be aware of the leo options.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This isn’t going to be an easy answer for you:

In the olden days, they handled them by staying sufficiently underweight to lose their period. Hopefully you know all of the reasons that this is a bad idea- RED-S, etc.

Now, there are a few options. First, heavy periods aren’t normal. And I say this as a person who suffered through them from 13 to 26 and avoided all sorts of things and lived with insane stress because I couldn’t go 45 minutes sometimes without going through a super plus tampon.

Take her to a doctor and discuss dysmenorrhea and continuous birth control- if the concept of bcp freaks you out, you need to think of it as hormone control that will help your Dd live her life. Make sure she doesn’t have PCOS or endometriosis. Check her iron levels.

Continuous bcp changed my life but I wonder what I might have done or achieved had I not spent my adolescence worrying about period accidents or getting 2 hours of sleep at a time because I had to set alarms to avoid accidents at night.

Totally agree with this. I had heavy periods until I got an IUD at 43. Also, do not assume that the ballet teacher will necessarily understand a vague reference to “heavy flow.”

[Anonymous]

Try a cup, try tampons, and get her some period underwear to wear under the leo. There are so many products available nowadays.

[Anonymous]

Is period underwear just a different kind of diaper?

[Anonymous]

-cup
-birth control

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This would be a case where I would talk to the teacher or director of the ballet school.

Ask them what? Her class isnt over 2 hrs, likey 1-1.5 hrs. If she knows it is a heavy day, she uses the rest room mid class and changes tampon. If she is bleeding through a super tampon in an under an hour I think that warrants a doctor visit.

I didn’t say ask them anything. I said to talk to them. You explain she needs to wear a special leo or a skirt over her leo that day. I’m sure for practice and a medical reason that would be fine.
Good Lord you are dense!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This would be a case where I would talk to the teacher or director of the ballet school.

NP, but my daughter would be mortified if I did something like this. True, it’s a medical issue, but it wouldn’t feel that way to her.

As a society, we’ve made some progress in erasing menstrual stigma, but still, not many teenage girls would feel comfortable having adults, (other than their doctor) discussing the details of their periods.

If OP’s daughter is OK with it, then that’s fabulous, maybe we’ve made more progress than I thought. But I don’t think mine would be.

[Anonymous]

They've lightened up as she's gotten older but when she first got it my DD would run to the bathroom to change tampons in the water break they have between barre and center and then again before they started pointe. She also wore a thin pantyliner in a thong under her tights because she figured out that even if the leotard is a dark color and would theoretically hide it, the overflow goes down the tights first and shows through around the edges. We also contemplated putting a nude color period leo with a pantyliner underneath the class leo but thankfully never had to go that far.

They're not allowed to wear skirts and the leo is a uniform so no option to swap it out for a different style. Primary teacher is an old Russian grump and she'd rather die than talk about her periods with him.