Menstrual Cups: The Sustainable Future for Women Hygiene in India

In India, the usage of Menstrual Cups is comparatively limited. The study focuses on the acceptability, affordability, accessibility and awareness of Menstrual Cups amongst Indian women in the menstruating age. An assessment of the Knowledge, Aptitude, Practice and Behaviour (KAPB) of Menstrual Cups was done. The sampled data received from various parts of the country, after exclusions, included 397 responses. The average age of the respondents was 24 years where most of them were students and were from urban dwelling. From the results, it was inferred that menstrual cups users were in favour with their experiences with 79% reporting menstrual cups to be comfortable and 82% of the users found menstrual cups to be cheaper compared to other menstrual products, 61% of the users reported menstrual cups to be easy to adapt. For monthly expenditure of sanitary products, menstrual cups were more cost efficient as users spent an average of Rs 0-100 in comparison to other Sanitary Products where users spent an average of Rs 100-300. Disposable Sanitary pads was the most used sanitary product by non-menstrual cup users. 29.6% of the respondents are willing to switch to menstrual cups and 45.4% of the respondents are not sure if they want to switch to menstrual cups. The reasons for non-usage of menstrual cups was mostly comfort (32%), limited knowledge (25%) and accessibility (15%). Homemakers scored high on Practice and Behaviour questions while Business women scored high on Knowledge and Aptitude questions. Both users and non-users recommended conducting awareness drives in the form of seminars focusing on clarifying myths and taboos related to menstrual cups. A change in favor of menstrual cups could be made possible by targeted pricing and advertising