How can you determine your menstrual flow?

Really knowing your menstrual flow is essential to choosing the right period products. Understanding your body helps you anticipate what it needs and, when it comes to your flow, avoid leaks and unpleasant surprises. 

However, it’s not always easy to know where you stand. It’s hard to compare yourself, hard to look at your body and your period objectively. On top of that, menstruation keeps changing over time. It’s also a natural phenomenon that isn’t stable or perfectly regular to the day.

Louloucup is here to help you get to know yourself better by discovering the nature of your menstrual flow. Here, there are no taboos and no silly questions!

Every woman is different. Every period is different. Every flow is different. So it’s important not to compare yourself to others. Getting to know your menstrual flow is not always easy. 

What’s more, over the course of their lives, women experience different kinds of periods. Depending on their health, age or certain events (pregnancy), the nature of menstrual flow keeps changing. This is normal and natural.

Learning to understand the nature of your menstrual flow helps you better understand your body, get to know yourself, anticipate certain health issues and, above all, experience your cycles more comfortably. By knowing your flow, you’re better able to choose protection that suits your needs. Washable sanitary pads, menstrual cups, period panties or tampons—there’s no one perfect solution. There are several, and you should choose the one you feel most comfortable with!

Very watery menstrual flow or thicker, more viscous or with clots—period blood can take many forms. There’s no such thing as a good or bad flow. There are simply different types of flow.

Menstrual flow is very watery when the blood is low in oxygen. The blood hasn’t had time to clot at all. You could say it looks similar to the blood flowing in the veins of a healthy person. It tends to flow very quickly, but is also absorbed quickly.

**Menstrual flow is viscous** when the blood has started to clot. As it becomes oxygenated, it thickens and may also become darker. It will logically flow more slowly than a liquid flow.

Since the human body is an exceptional machine, heavy periods tend to be thicker. The body oxygenates the blood on purpose so it doesn’t flow too quickly. This way, the body avoids a hemorrhage. 

Having menstrual flow with clots shouldn’t be a major cause for concern. Clots are a sign that the uterine lining, which has thickened to welcome a fertilized egg, is returning to its normal state. The sticky appearance is due to the production of glycogen, which would “feed” the embryo to support its development.

At the slightest doubt, however, don’t hesitate to see a gynecologist, your doctor or your midwife.

Blood loss during a menstrual cycle averages 2 to 5 tablespoons. It’s surprising how little that actually is! Again, this is just an average to give you a rough idea of your flow.

A so-called normal cycle is one that is established and stable—the one you have regularly. Beyond that, there is no real “normal” in this area. A medium flow is just as natural as a light or heavy flow.

It’s helpful to know what your menstrual flow is like (light, medium, heavy, very heavy) so you can choose the right period protection accordingly.

A light menstrual flow corresponds on average to 30 ml per period. That’s equivalent to one tampon a day or just a few drops on a pad.

A medium menstrual flow is between 30 ml and 50 ml per cycle. Two to three tampons are enough for a day or a pad every 3 hours.

A heavy menstrual flow means losing 50 ml to 70 ml of blood. You’ll need to change protection more often: about one pad every 3 hours or 5 tampons per day.

A **hemorrhagic menstrual flow** can exceed 70 ml. In general, this isn’t natural and is caused by an external factor (IUD, postpartum, medical conditions, certain medications, etc.) The **copper IUD** often causes very heavy, watery periods. While things may calm down a few months after insertion, periods usually remain intense and can be considered disabling by some teens or women.

A woman with hemorrhagic periods needs to change every two hours on average when her flow is at its heaviest.

Tampons get saturated quickly and aren’t ideal. Period panties for very heavy flow or a menstrual cup are the best alternatives for getting through your period as calmly as possible.

If you have hemorrhagic periods and don’t know why, you really need to see a healthcare professional.

In general, we all have an irregular flow speed that more or less follows this pattern:

• slow flow on the first day,
• faster flow on days 2 and 3,
• a speed that decreases over the following days until it stops.

Of course, flow rates vary from one woman to another.

The easiest way to assess how fast your flow is is to use a menstrual cup, which lets you see exactly how much blood is collected over a set period of time.

It’s actually quite rare to have a constant flow rate; regularity is not really the norm in the world of the menstrual cycle. A regular flow would mean your blood comes out at the same speed from the first to the last day of your period.