Periods and water-based camps
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Anonymous
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A camp with no bathrooms wouldn’t even be considered in our household. Wtf are you thinking??? Abort.
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Anonymous
NP. I don't think that's practical for this trip because it will take a couple of months to regulate her period and ensure that the BCP she's using doesn't have any breakthrough bleeding associated with it. Others mentioned changing or going into the woods. I think OP is saying that they'll be on the water all day, which isn't unusual for a rafting or canoeing camp. For both, kids usually hold their poop (I know, I know) and hop out into the water to swim and then pee. For "real" rafting, yes, there are not bathrooms and overnight raft trips in many areas often involve a poop container that has its own raft. Not even kidding. I was in this situation 30 years ago and actually pretended to be sick right before camp because I knew that there was no way to make the logistics work with my then quite-heavy period. I think that a lot of these camps as well as the entire outdoor adventure industry in general are based around logistics created by and for men. It wasn't until well into adulthood that I found all-woman outdoor experiences and appropriate mentorship for handling some of the challenges of having a female body outdoors. This doesn't help you now, OP, but I would find an all-girls trip next year. In the meantime, a tampon is pretty much the only option. Period underwear would eventually become saturated and I don't think period swimsuit bottoms would make it though the long day. I'm really sorry your daughter is dealing with this. An unpredictable period and difficult logistics kept me out of a few trips and adventures that I really didn't want to miss- she is not alone but people don't really talk about this. |
Anonymous
| A tampon will quickly fill up within 2 hours and leak if not changed. And where is she going to change it and dispose of it? Hell no. She would be mortified to do that in front of her peers on a rafting trip. I would pull her out of the trip. |
Anonymous
| OP-- surely the camp has faced this before. Frankly, I'm surprised it isn't on their FAQs or something. I would reach out to them and ask about the logistics of it. |
Anonymous
This is shockingly true. The sad truth is that the most likely situation is that no one planning/leading the camp thought for one moment about periods or the kids who have them. I'm sorry, OP. It really sucks to be both a kid and a parent facing this situation. |
Anonymous
| Are there no female counselors? Truly? Tampons and a conversation with someone. Black bathing suit. |
Anonymous
Agree. Highly doubt they have zero access to bathrooms all day |
Anonymous
I don’t believe in living like this. It only sucks if you want to be a victim about it. I’m sure there are women involved in the camp. There are also adult men who know people menstruate. I mean what, no one has ever had diarrhea at this camp?! Everyone else has a fairy butt? I highly doubt it. |
Anonymous
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Yeah, don't be shy -- definitely ask the camp management about it. When she was 12 my daughter did an Outward Bound rafting trip and got her period -- I think she'd had it for maybe 6 months before that so she knew how to manage and kind of expected it. As others have said, at that age they're typically not so regular (or hopefully, heavy) that it wouldn't be manageable even with just one break in the day.
On OB trips they carry a "groover" which is the aforementioned box that everyone poops in (pack your trash and all that), basically a field toilet that they set up in some privacy. No cat-holes on rafting trips! I hope your daughter can get it sorted -- that sounds like so much fun! |
Anonymous
| The whole idea of this makes me so stressed for her! I don’t have daughters but here to help brainstorm. They must eat lunch, right? And throw out lunch garbage somewhere? She should wear a tampon with period swim bottom. Change tampon somewhere behind a tree at lunch (give her ziploc to put it in and maybe a paper bag to put over that) and throw out with the other garbage. Maybe a fresh period swim bottom if she can shimmy into that discreetly under a towel (ziploc for the wet one). I dunno. I’m indoorsy and this is like my nightmare but perhaps this is the workaround. |
Anonymous
| Tampons and a ziplock bag. You treat it like any other trash you make when on a long hike and don’t have access to a trash can. Carry your trash with you until you can dispose. Not that big of a deal. |
Anonymous
Many adult men are shockingly ignorant of how menstruation works. And in many situations, not thinking about something keeps you from having to be responsible for accommodating people, so this might be deliberate ignorance. I stumbled into a conversation about this on a backcountry ski trip that was majority male, ages 20-40. I was at the very old side of that age range at the time. We were discussing how logistics for bathrooms for the next day would work, since we were going to be in a situation with exposure and no privacy- the team had been running these trips for years and somehow the accommodation for women who would need to use a bathroom on that specific terrain was "we'll just have to turn around or you'll have to hold it until we get back." There was a ton of impatience with the bathroom breaks that me and another woman on the trip had to take because it took us longer to deal with our gear. The conversation eventually went to periods and one of the men actually thought having a period was like urinating and that menstrual flow was released in the same way. Most of the other men thought that tampons or pads were like a bandaid on a cut and had to be changed once or twice a day at most. I'm in my mid 40s now, and the health and development curriculum at my kids' school suggests that younger generations are not learning about bodies of the opposite sex in the way that we did back in the 80s and 90s. I'm sure there are tons of reasons for that, but the consequence is that we live in a more open society with more information, yet people are more ignorant. |
Anonymous
| Agree with the poster at 12:20; assume that the vast majority of men and boys have next to no idea about the reality of what having a period is like. They truly have no clue. Many of them think a woman can hold the blood in when it’s not convenient for it to be released. Blissfully ignorant. |
Anonymous
That is super dumb, but I will say this is kind of true for me when I am wearing a menstrual disc (ymmv). It's awesome. |
Anonymous
Period or not, how is anyone signing up for 10 hours with no bathroom? |