Women's and girls' health
Explore women's and girls' health: Contraception and family planning, Periods and menstrual health, Cervical cancer and HPV screening, Breast awareness and breast lumps. Simple health information from AfyaMesh.
4 health topics
Contraception and family planning
Family planning is deciding whether and when to have a child, and using something that holds until you are ready. It is not one thing. Some methods you take yourself, some a nurse fits and you forget about for years, and all of them stop when you want them to.
Periods and menstrual health
A period is the bleeding that comes from the womb about once a month between puberty and the change of life. It is not an illness and not something to be ashamed of. Pain or bleeding heavy enough to stop your day is a different matter, and it has causes that can be found and treated.
Cervical cancer and HPV screening
A cancer of the cervix, the neck of the womb. Nearly all of it comes from a common virus called HPV, which is passed on during sex. Most HPV infections clear by themselves and cause nothing. A few stay for years and slowly change the cells of the cervix - and those changes can be found and treated long before they ever become a cancer.
Breast awareness and breast lumps
Breast awareness is simply knowing how your own breasts normally look and feel, so that a change is something you notice rather than something you find by accident years later. Most breast lumps turn out not to be cancer. The reason to have one looked at is that the ones that are cancer are far easier to treat while they are still small.