Despite a freeing of speech in recent years, menstruation is still the subject of numerous taboos in Europe. And high-level sportswomen are no exception, as demonstrated by a survey carried out ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Even today, many French women do not dare to raise the subject of menstruation, or even hide or suffer discrimination when they have their periods. Among high-level athletes, these taboos only accentuate the difficulties encountered in their sporting practice. An opinion survey carried out by Carole Maître, (gynecologist at INSEP) among 289 players from the French Rugby Federation, reveals that 76% of them have a negative perception of their periods. Among them, 20% confide that their periods are “too heavy”, while 44% consider them “painful and annoying”. Of the 289 players interviewed, 128 of them believe that their menstruation period constitutes a hindrance in their training. “Many of them also complain of premenstrual syndrome with fatigue, lack of energy, bloating, weight gain, irritability.“, notes the doctor who carried out the survey. However, despite these obstacles to their training, only 54% of these athletes say they speak to their doctor.
These results put into perspective the need to break the taboo of rules and that of “safe spaces” within sports federations and clubs so that athletes can talk about them with complete confidence and benefit from appropriate support. Especially since the subject of periods in the world of sport is confronted with another major problem: the disruption of the menstrual cycle. As underlined by the National College of French Gynecologists and Obstetricians (CNGOF), at the origin of the “Let’s break the rules” campaign unveiled this Tuesday, May 28, “the absence of periods is common among athletes and a source of complications“.
Among these complications, the energy deficit syndrome linked to sport, which manifests itself when energy intake is not sufficient to compensate for energy expenditure. “Due to the intensity of physical activity, these athletes have a low percentage of body fat. Periods become less frequent“, explains the CNGOF. In some cases, this can also cause periods to stop. In young athletes, the arrival of the first menstrual cycle can also be delayed for the same reasons.
To encourage young athletes to talk about their periods, the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance (Insep) organizes awareness workshops to help them become better aware of their level of pain and to inform about possible support. “All these questions relating to period and menstrual cycle disorders are now taken into account by doctors of women's sports teams and by coaches better trained in these subjects. This contributes and will contribute to freeing the voice of young athletes so that they can find solutions to these difficulties, provided that they mention them.“, underlines Insep.