Free bleeding or so-called pad-free period. Or tampon-free, depending on your preferences on period products. However, we believe that free bleeding and sanitary pads are the perfect couple and can bring you many benefits. Most importantly, it might be a very helpful remedy against period cramps; apart from the more “transcendental” benefit of understanding your body better.
What Is Free Bleeding?
Let’s do some basic biology revision first: Period bleeding means that your uterus is getting rid of uterine lining that is not going to be needed as you’re not pregnant. Uterine lining comes apart in chunks, smaller or bigger. When your body accommodates sufficient amount of these chunks, they leave your body through your cervix, accompanied by menstrual blood.
This means that period bleeding is never a steady flow of blood. There are short intervals in which you bleed and much longer intervals in which you don’t bleed. The short intervals can be anticipated – it just takes a little bit of practice. You can control your bleeding to an extent and do most of it while you’re sitting on a toilet.
But how to tell the right time to release period blood? You need to perceive your cervix. We know a lot of you are now like “yeah, sure, why not, I’ll control my cervix, and what’s next, waving with my spleen?” We get you! :) But trust us, it IS possible. All you need is practice.
Those who have given birth have a head start here. They felt their cervix during contractions for sure as the opening of one's cervix is the part of delivery that hurts the most. It’s no coincidence that a lot of mothers start practising free bleeding once their period comes back. It feels very natural.
“I used to use menstrual cup but when my period came back after I’ve had my son, somehow my cramps got stronger when I was using the cup, especially during the first two days. I couldn’t figure out why but then I started practising free bleeding and it all made sense – it was as if the menstrual cup was blocking my cervix and my body couldn’t release the blood properly. So my cramps got more intense and painful. I still use my menstrual cup now but only when I go swimming and I do my best to avoid it during the first two days of my cycle.
Monika (40)
5 Tips on How to Start Practising Free Bleeding
In case you decide to give free bleeding a shot, try following our 5 rookie tips:
- Choose a calm day for your first try. Spend it preferably in the comfort of your own home, with no need to go anywhere. While it’s definitely possible to practise free bleeding in a busy office or on a hike, we’ll recommend leaving it to the time when you’ll have gained some experience.
- The arrival of Aunt Irma (aka your period) is often announced by contractions of your uterus (aka period cramps). Once you start to cramp, try tightening and releasing your cervix while sitting on a toilet.
- When blood appears, sit on the toilet a few minutes longer than usual, still trying to tighten and release your cervix. Observe and perceive what is happening in your body.
- After you’ve been sitting on a toilet for a while and there’s no more fresh blood coming, you can leave the bathroom.
- Get back there whenever you feel “full” (sorry, we can’t think of a better term here). It can be described as a light inner pressure on your cervix, from the side of your uterus. This for sure takes some practice to recognise. But it can be done!
How to Reduce Period Cramps
Period cramps are basically the same contractions that accompany giving birth, just less intense. Free bleeding helps to ease these period cramps. How?
We believe it’s because you let your body do what it’s supposed to do when practising free bleeding. You don’t suppress its natural processes. When you let your uterus do its thing, when you let the blood flow, your body rewards you by cramping less.
By the way, period cramps are the best indicator telling you that it’s time to sit on the toilet when you’re on your period. Due to this, it’s sometimes easier to practice free bleeding during the first few days of your cycle when your body sends you these regular reminders.
“Funnily enough, I don’t usually miss the right moment to go to the bathroom at the beginning of my period. It’s often in the final days that I’m surprised that I didn’t get to the bathroom on time.”
Martina (39)
Martina describes her period as very heavy. Still, she mastered free bleeding like a pro. Which brought her an extra benefit, apart from less painful period cramps. She used to suffer from migraines almost every month – and they got considerably less intense and less regular.
5 Tips on How to Practice Free Bleeding with Ease
We have gathered quite a lot of tips on free bleeding within our team! They’re quite random but we consider them worth sharing.
- Human intuition is so powerful! Whenever you randomly think that it may be the right time to go to the bathroom, get up and go, quick! You’ve got 5 seconds.
- When you’ve been sitting down for more than an hour, your first steps shall lead to the bathroom immediately after you get up. Take the most direct way.
- Surprisingly, unwanted leaks aren’t that common when being active, especially when engaging your pelvic muscles. You can run 10k or take a yoga class. But remember: Once you relax, your entire body will relax. Each workout should be finished in the bathroom.
- With regard to night-time, we think there are two types of period people: Those who hardly bleed and those who bleed hard. Nothing in between. The former can feel free to practice free bleeding at night – just make sure your bathroom is not on a different floor. You won’t make it that far in the morning.
- We’re only humans. We can’t concentrate just on our periods for several days; we’ve got other stuff to do. And as much as we like to practice free bleeding, we also like to have a back-up in our pants. Just to be safe. Some of us feel better with a sanitary pad, some are comfortable with just a panty liner. We prefer reusable ones that we can wash and use again. The luckier of us with period on the lighter side, like to use period pants.
More Eco-Friendly Period Tips
Free bleeding means the most eco-friendly period, as in theory, you don’t need any period products. But as we’ve just said, we think a back-up can be very helpful and may actually make you feel entirely FREE. We wrote an article recently on products for an eco-friendly period – have a look if you’re interested.
Reusable sanitary pads and washable panty liners are some of the eco-friendly products that we like. Watch this video to learn more about them: