The dads helping daughters through their periods

When now 16-year-old Helen got her first period, it was her dad who helped her with it as he was the parent who happened to be at home.

Chatting about periods with young people can be awkward, even more so if you don't experience them yourself, but Helen says her dad had always spoken openly about what to expect which made that first time much easier.

Dads "can't tell you how it actually feels or how it can affect your life sometimes, but they can still provide advice and talk about it," she says.

Yet talking about periods can still feel like uncomfortable for many and even today, it's often left to mothers to handle.

Helen's father John Adams is one of a growing number of dads who are challenging the unfounded stigma.

John was a stay-at-home parent when his two daughters - now 16 and 12 - were younger, and said some parents he'd spoken to felt too uncomfortable to talk to their kids about periods.

"They were waiting for them to learn about it at school, but I don't believe it's just a teacher's job to talk about this."

John spoke to both daughters about what they might experience, the level of pain they could be in and the various sanitary product options.

"Men maybe blunder in but they go in without that baggage and just sort of talk about things practically," he tells BBC Radio 5 Live's Time of the Month.

John, who now works in education, admits he's no expert but he spoke to his wife and mother about it and used books and online resources to guide him.

For him, periods are a matter of health, not embarrassment and while the idea of dads discussing menstruation still divides opinion, John says it's important to "be there and approachable for your children".

As a widowed father, Roy had no choice. He has been raising his daughter alone after his wife died from cancer.

He started talking about periods when she was nine, by going through some books with her about what to expect.

"Initially the colour drained from her face, but we spoke about it openly."

Later, he showed his daughter a pad and demonstrated how she should stick it onto her pants and suggested she have a test drive of one.

"Things are scary when you don't know what's going on.

"I'm preparing my daughter for life and part of that is periods, sex, boyfriends, relationships. It's all difficult but you can't hide from it."

For many women, the memory of their first period is far less open.

Hannah Routledge, who works for the not-for-profit group Hey Girls, which works to stop period poverty, remembers hers with discomfort.

"I started my periods really young. I was only 10," she says. "I went to a school that had no provision, no bins even."

Hey Girls launched its Pads for Dads campaign in 2019, offering free guidance and resources to help fathers have those early talks.

"It was designed to break the stigma around periods for dads and parents in general," she explains. "Don't wait for a big conversation, it's about having lots of smaller ones, making sure you've got products in the house and just being supportive."

Hannah says it's also essential parents talk to their sons about periods to make them aware.

Dr Nighat Arif, a GP who specialises in women's health, started talking to her six-year-old son when he found one of her tampons in the bathroom.

"I said 'This is something that mummy uses because she bleeds'". Initially, this made him anxious, but she told him it was normal and happened to all women every month.

Hannah says attitudes are changing fast and has even noticed a shift in her own dad who would have once avoided period conversations but now "if his granddaughters needed something or wanted to have that conversation, I think he'd be much more open".

Consultant gynaecologist Dr Christine Ekechi, who works in the NHS, says there's often a double standard when it comes to parents talking to their children about puberty.

"There are so many single mothers with sons and we don't tell them they cannot talk to their sons about puberty and adolescence and about protective sex.

"So why do we still have this hang up if it's the other way around?"

An increase in openness at home also has wider effects and Dr Ekechi believes informed fathers make better colleagues and leaders too.

This can help reduce period stigma in the workplace and improve menstrual equity at work.

Above all though, "it's a fantastic way to improve a bond between a father and a daughter," she says.