Confidential Chats with Girls

by William Lee Howard

Never, under any circumstances, take medicines for this trouble. Let “regulating pills” alone as you would a rattlesnake. Now that you know the cause, common-sense will tell you that pills, or any and all things of the kind, are not only useless, but harmful.

“But, Doctor, how about the girl who has had several good periods and then stops for several months, or even skips a month and only flows every other month? There can be no closing of the mouth of the womb under these circumstances?”

No, in such cases the cause is entirely different, or rather the causes, for there are many. Most of you can find out for yourself just what YOUR cause is for being irregular, after I point out to you some facts.

Many times it is only Nature’s way of preserving your health. For instance, if you have not sufficient blood in your system to allow you to lose a certain amount every month, Nature will prevent it going to the womb to be thrown away. Some girls will have “nose bleeds” once or twice a month and this takes the place of the monthly flow. This is not a sign of good health, just a sign that something is wrong—see a good doctor, he will know and tell you what to do. If you are troubled with headaches (especially in the back of the head and neck), if your appetite is poor, if you lost too great an amount during your last flow, or if your nervousness increases, it means that you are in poor condition. Perhaps you have danced too much and lost too much sleep, been unduly excited or had some great grief; any of these things will affect in some way your menses. Anything, in fact, which lowers the tone of your general health will affect the menses.

If you are over-fat and growing fatter every day, this unhealthful condition will stop your menses. I don’t mean a plump, jolly, happy amount of fat,—this is a good state for a growing girl,—but I mean an overplus of fat with white cheeks, flabby flesh, swollen ankles and big stomach. Such a condition indicates some disease.

There are many diseases which leave you in a condition of suppressed or irregular menstruation; such as typhoid fever, kidney affections, chlorosis—lack of red blood—consumption, scarlet fever. If you have gone through any one of these illnesses and your periods are irregular or scanty, don’t worry; time will put this matter right as you recover from the general effects of the disease. If you have reason to fear consumption, be grateful that Nature is preserving your blood to help you get well; for, as you know, you can get well—can completely recover from consumption—if you WILL EAT AND SLEEP IN THE OPEN AIR—LIVE IN THE OPEN AIR.

Most of the causes for irregularities and scanty flows are due to your unhygienic methods of living and playing. Sleeping in rooms where fresh air only gets in through a crack, insufficient and improper food and too much tea and coffee, will soon cause irregularities and other menstrual troubles. Catching cold or getting wet feet, damp skirts flapping around thinly-clad ankles just before or during the time of your monthlies, will also bring you to some womb trouble.

Then the influence of the mind upon all these matters plays a very important part in your health. Evil suggestions from girls or youths, seeing plays which you ought not to see, reading all that rotten stuff put out for young women and girls to read and dream over—I don’t mean the nasty ones, but all those which unduly excite the imagination and throw a false light upon life—the Duke, the Prince and Villain kind—the virtuous blonde maiden and the hard-working hero stuff, you all know what I mean. There is plenty of good literature, exciting stories, to be read without reading a lot of cheap tinsel and ready-made romances which have no more to do with real life than a mask has to do with the human features.

You can over-exercise, become too much excited over contests in the gymnasium, use up force to such an extent that your growing womanly functions become weakened and sometimes dried up. No girl of a nervous temperament should go into any athletic contest, team or personal. Such a girl should not play basketball, attempt any stunts on horizontal bars or flying rings; nothing, in fact, which calls for a strain upon the nervous system. The function of the womb, as well as of all the sex organs, are directly affected by the nervous system. You can never be a strong woman, complete in all that belongs to a woman and her career, if you, as a young woman, over-strain the nervous system.

Hundreds of girls who are playing contests of basketball, to see which team is to be the champion of the state or the town, are going to suffer from all this excitement. Your teachers do not take into serious consideration your growing sex organs. They do not seem to know what it means for a girl to get over-excited at any time during her development, that there is nothing except alcohol which will arouse dangerous impulses more than athletic excitement. So do be careful of your exercise.