10 Great Books on Menstrual Education
Who doesn’t enjoy discovering a mind-blowing book that you’ll recommend to everyone as soon as you finish it?
If you’re anything like me, you probably spend endless hours trying to figure out what your next great read will be.
With that in mind, I’d like to share a list of 10 books about periods, menstruation and the menstrual cycle that we think everybody should read.
Disclaimer: the order of these books is random.
Fix Your Period
Six Weeks to Life-Long Hormone Balance
By Nicole Jardim, certified women’s health coach. Available only in English.
Based on decades of work with women, this author presents a program that will help you better understand your menstrual cycle, identify hormonal imbalances and fix challenging issues naturally.
Period Repair Manual
Natural Treatment for Better Hormones and Better Periods
By Lara Briden, naturopatic doctor.
Available in English, Spanish, German, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Dutch, and Estonian.
This is a guide to better periods using natural treatments such as diet, nutritional supplements, herbal medicine, and natural hormones. It contains advice and tips for women of every age and situation.
Taking charge of your fertility
The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health
By Toni Weschler, menstrual educator and Master in Public Health.
Available in English, Spanish, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, German, and Romanian.
This is considered “The Bible” of the FAM (Fertility Awareness Method) or Symptothermal Method. This author has taught a whole new generation of women how to become pregnant, avoid pregnancy naturally and gain better control of their gynaecological and sexual health.
CYCLO: tu menstruación sostenible y en positivo.
By Paloma Alma, CEO of the Spanish company CYCLO.
Available only in Spanish.
This is a book about menstrual education, created to change the way we experience our periods: the main premise is that YOU are in charge of your menstrual cycle.
Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation
By Elissa Stein and Susan Kim.
Available only in English.
These authors introduce us to the world of menstrual history in a funny yet real way. This book explores people’s fear when it comes to menstruation. Flow answers such questions as What’s the point of getting a period? What did women do before pads and tampons? What about new drugs that promise to end periods? Sex during your period: gross or a turn-on? And what’s normal, anyway? It includes colour reproductions of (campy) historical ads and early (excruciating) fem-care devices, it also provides a gallery of this complex, personal and uniquely female process.
This Is Your Brain on Birth Control
The Surprising Science of Women, Hormones, and the Law of Unintended Consequences
By Sarah Hill, PhD, Evolutionary Psicologist.
Available in English and Spanish.
This groundbreaking book sheds light on how hormonal birth control affects women and the world around them in ways we are just now beginning to understand. By allowing women to control their fertility, the birth control pill has revolutionized women’s lives. Women are going to college, graduating, and entering the workforce in greater numbers than ever before, and there’s good reason to believe that the birth control pill has a lot to do with this. But there’s a lot more to the pill than meets the eye.
Hormone Repair Manual
Every Woman’s Guide to Healthy Hormones After 40
By Lara Briden, naturopatic doctor.
Available in English, Spanish, and Dutch.
This book is a practical guide to feeling better in your 40s, 50s, and beyond. It explains how to navigate the change of perimenopause and relieve symptoms with natural treatments such as diet, nutritional supplements, and bioidentical hormone therapy.
Period Power
Harness Your Hormones and Get Your Cycle Working For You
By Maise Hill, women’s health coach and birth doula.
Available only in English.
Period Power is the handbook to periods and hormones that will leave you wondering why the hell nobody told you this sooner.
The hormones of the menstrual cycle profoundly influence our energy, mood and behaviour. Still, all too often we’re taught that our hormones make us unreliable, moody bitches, or that it’s our lot in life to put up with “women’s problems.” Maisie Hill, a women’s health practitioner, knows the power of working with the menstrual cycle and refuses to accept this theory. Instead, Maisie believes that our hormones are there to serve us and, if utilized correctly, can be used to help you get what you want out of life. Yes, we are hormonal, and that’s a perfect thing.
La revolución de la menstruación
Todo lo que debes saber sobre la salud hormonal y el ciclo
By Xuxa Sanz, nurse and nutritionist.
Available only in Spanish.
This book explains why, beyond fertility, our menstrual cycle is a vital sign. It presents the main aspects to have a healthy cycle, such as physical exercise, stress management, or proper rest.
This book is like a manual where you’ll learn how to bust menstrual myths and taboos, and it provides every tool to help us understand what’s going on in our bodies.
The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies.
By Chris Bobel, Breanne Fahs, Elizabeth Arveda Kissling, Katie Ann Hasson, Inga T. Winkler, Tomi-Ann Roberts
Available only in English.
This book provides a comprehensive and carefully curated multidisciplinary and genre-spanning view of the state of the field of Critical Menstruation Studies, opening up new directions in research and advocacy. Its central question: ‘“what new lines of inquiry are possible when we center our attention on menstrual health and politics across the life course?”
Every chapter establishes Critical Menstruation Studies as a potent lens that reveals, complicates and unpacks inequalities across biological, social, cultural and historical dimensions. This handbook is an unmatched resource for researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and activists new to and already familiar with the field as it rapidly develops and expands.
This is my list of 10 wonderful books to learn more about all things related to menstruation. Have you read any of them? Would you add any other to this list?
Hi there! I’m Ariadna, from ariadnatranslations.com
I’m here to share some thoughts and ideas about my job as a translator. I love writing about language, women/feminism, health and wellbeing, among other interesting topics. If you liked what you read above, I invite you to comment and share it on your social media.
