The menstrual cycle can be a mystery! Those ever-changing hormone levels can be puzzling.

Even women have a hard time understanding what exactly is happening in their body. Why do some women get cranky right before their period? And which days are the ‘safe’ days again? Get over the confusion and read all you need to know about the menstrual cycle in this week's top five facts!

“I started my periods when I was 13 but I didn’t tell anyone in my family about it for five years,” says Anita. 

Her mother discovered that she had been menstruating just a few months before she got married at 18. “There was no point in discussing it with her and I think she found out about it when she needed to,” says Anita.

PMS as we know it might be a myth, new research shows.

Does your boyfriend blame your bad mood on ‘that time of the month’? Maybe it’s not premenstrual syndrome – maybe it’s him! Or maybe you’re just having a bad day. Yes, many women find their mood changes over their monthly cycle. But in reality there’s a huge variety in how and when they are affected.

Sex myths are the biggest menace ever. A contagious infection spreading from one ignorant person to another. It’s essential to find a cure before it turns into an epidemic. So, I present to you the Sex Myth Buster series! 

Menstruation – women experience it from teenage to middle age, yet periods are still taboo to talk about. Menstruation myths are common – so let’s get started!

My mother invited all my relatives and neighbours to celebrate my first period.

People, some of whom I was meeting for the first time, were offering me congratulations on being a woman. I was a shy 11-year-old when I had my first period. I didn’t want the world to know that I was bleeding. But everybody knew and was happy about it. I was confused and embarrassed.

When I got my first period, it was scary as hell.

One fine morning, as usual I was hurling my clothes out of the bathroom – some childish habit that had stuck. Suddenly, my sister started screaming, asking my mother to come take a look at my skirt. I peeped out of the bathroom, trying to make sense of what was happening.

Women avoid their fathers when they are most likely to get pregnant, a new study found.

Is this nature’s way to prevent inbreeding? Or is it just that girls steer clear of their overbearing dads when they'd rather be with their boyfriends?

“He thought I had hurt myself, cut my leg or something. We checked for a cut or a wound but there was nothing.”

Ushma was 12 years old, out playing with friends. One of them had noticed a large red stain on her dress. Part one in a series of personal stories about first times. This week, a first period.

A cheap machine to make affordable sanitary pads for Indian women: it’s entrepreneur Arunachalam Muruganantham’s greatest achievement, he says.

When Muruganantham learned of the unhygienic way his wife and the vast majority of Indian women had to deal with their periods, he became obsessed with helping out. He almost lost everything trying, but in the end he created the sanitary pad of his dreams.