10 things every woman needs to know about periods.

1. A normal period is between 10 and 60mls of blood total.

2. The first period after childbirth is nearly always ‘anovulatory’ – you don’t release an egg before you bleed. This means it’s probably going to be pretty heavy and gross.

3. One in five women between 35 and 49 have excessively heavy periods and 75 per cent of these women never seek help from a health professional.

4. The urban myth of menstrual synchrony is just that. Studies have found little evidence that women who either work or live together have periods that line up at the same time. It’s believing in period synchrony that makes women look for it. If women have a period for seven days in every 28 there’s a good chance that there will be some overlap at some point, even just for a day or two.

Syncing with your squad is great and all, but a myth. Image via YouTube.

5. Women today have an estimated 456 periods during your lifetime. That is three times as many as our ancestors. They started menstruating later plus they spent many more years pregnant or breast feeding.

6. Period blood is the same blood you would lose from a cut in your arm. It’s not laced with female venom and doesn’t need to come out to purify your soul.

7. Women hate their periods. A recent survey from the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals found that 74 per cent of us envy men because they don’t have to have periods and only 8 per centof us like having a period (surprised it was that high!).

8. We don’t have a lot of sex during periods. A 1996 USA study found that only a quarter of women reported having sexual intercourse during a period.

9. Migraines and periods go hand in hand. About half of all women who are migraine sufferers get migraines during their periods. They are most likely to happen in the couple of days leading up to a period or during the period.

Migraines and periods go hand in hand. Some are... worse than others. Image via Talkback Thames (The IT Crowd).

10. Australian women buy a lot of sanitary products. A 2014 Roy Morgan poll found that 50 per cent of women between 14 and 54 had bought pads, a third had bought tampons and a quarter had bought panty liners in the past month.

What do you wish you knew about periods?