The Lady Astronaut
Did being a female version of human being made you feel weird of dreaming about floating on space, thinking about the mysteries in space and falling in love with whole magical universe? Hats off to that brave girls whose answer is “Hell NO!” and we need to be so proud of all the Lady Astronauts who are not giving a shit about soft biological attacks that can make them insecure!
This article is for all the young ladies who feel so insecured about how to handle periods on space and other health issues, myths and misunderstandings that made them lack of confidence to dream about the holly universe.
Yeah it’s true that every female do not need to be an astronaut as they study or dream about the space and its obvious that any female could learn about universe unless she doesn’t need to be an astronaut but that whole point is true until the day that astronauts aren’t the only people who travel beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. Just think like being an astronaut isn’t a big deal and there are much opportunities to be an astronaut or a an another passenger who travels to moon or mars or whatever planet and you are that girl who’s mind is oscillating between your insecurities and the precious opportunity in your hands.
How can we mange periods at space? Let’s move in to the topic.
What is Menstruation for Astronauts ?
Basically Menstruation is the main thing that comes in to our mind when discussing all the insecurities that a woman could possibly have, when thinking about this kind a journey!
We all know that biologically, Every women gets menstruation once in 28 days and it can vary from 21 days to 40 days as well. And normally menstruation last from about 3 days to 8 days and its absolutely normal and depend on various effects of the interior as well as exterior conditions of the body and it is different from person to person. It may be because of stress, obesity, hormonal contraceptives, thyroid issues so on and there can be lots of reasons for diversity in menstrual cycle.
During Menstruation Bleeding occurs and also some get period cramps. Period cramp can be something that has never happened in someone’s life while someone’s worst nightmare.
This phenomena is common to female astronauts too. As there are so many limitations and challenges in this Space industry, obtaining a good answer to control and face Menstruation while having a minimum effect to the health is not that easy.
In the book by Risk to Astronauts Health During Space Safe Passage by G. I Meleshkoet. al. under the chapter Reproductive system of females and in the article Microgravity and infertility by Jaiyeola O. Paul, Oluwafemi A. Funmilola and Abdullahi S. Ayegba it is said that compared to male astronauts the effects to the female reproductive system is not much severe since oocytes don’t undergo mitotic division actively and also the ovary is more resistant to radiations and genetically induced effects are considerably low. Normally according to the details single dose of 300–400 rads can eliminate the oocytes from the ovaries and also the estrogen production. But still female astronauts have to use various techniques to deal with periods on space. Even though the effect to reproductive system is much low for female astronauts when compared to male astronauts, Menstruation is something that is really challenging that female astronauts have to face on space.
The core facts of the issue we are going to discuss begins from now. Can an Astronaut possibly deal with menstruation or periods on space? Can she face those days as same as the way she did on earth?
Methods used to face Menstruation at Space
According to the article, “We Need to Talk About What Happens When You Get Your Period in Space” by Amy Lynn, the first option she is, skipping periods by using oral contraceptives(The Pill). This Oral contraceptives is the most popular method in between Lady Astronauts. Using Intrauterine Device(IUD) is an another option and the next option is Subdermal implants. The final option is Injections Depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA)which is called as Depo shot in general.
Let’s discuss each one of these options separately and clearly.
Oral contraceptives
Oral contraceptives is used to suppress menstruation by causing amenorrhea(Absence of menstruation) and according to the article “We Need to Talk About What Happens When You Get Your Period in Space” by Amy Lynn,female astronauts use contraceptives depending on the time duration of their mission. For long duration missions, female astronauts take combined oral contraceptive pill continously till the end of the mission. According to the article, Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives which is abbreviated as LARCs in generally is an another pill that can be used to induce amenorrhea medically. The main advantage of this method is, LARCs don’t have to be used daily so that the disposable waste is low. But in practically this method is not extensively used by female astronauts.
Intra Uterine Device(IUD)
The next one is IUD or Intrauterine Device in extent form and sometimes this is also called as IUC, the Intrauterine Contraception. IUD is a tiny device that can be inserted into the uterus to avoid pregnancy and induce amenorrhea. In the article A Brief History of Menstruating in Outer Space by Christina Cauterucci it is considered that IUD is the most effective method that can be used by female astronauts to induce amenorrhea with regarded to other methods cause there’s no need of a daily dose and further details are discussed bellow.
Next option a female astronaut could have is, Subdermal implants. Let’s see how it works.
Subdermal Implants
This is an implant that releases progesterone to the blood stream so it quits the releasing of an ovum. Subdermal implant can be active approximately for 03 years and considered as a certified method for astronauts. But according to npj, Microgravity report Medically induced amenorrhea in female astronauts , subdermal implant causes amenorrhea in an approximate percentage of 11–42% which is lower than other options that we have discussed above. But still this method considered as a good one because ones who are uncomfortable with IUD and ones who have problems regarding the usage of estrogen can choose this method without any hesitation.
Depo shot
The last option or the last method to suppress menstruation is an Injection which is also known as the Depo shot in common. Depot medroxyprogesterone acetate (DMPA) which contains progesterone is injected every 12 weeks and due to the progesterone level maintained in blood, ovulation is avoided and then menstrual flow is prevented.
Now let’s move to each ones pros and cons in detail
Pros and Cons of Menstruation suppression
When talking about the pills, carrying thousands of oral contraceptives cause unnecessary cost to the mission because the load is consuming considerable space in storage and also causing a risk to the space ship with an extra weight. And the other bad thing about pills is as we all know, the continous intake of any kind of medicine is not good for our body. It can cause many side effects to our body with time. Also the most curious and dangerous thing about the usage of pills is that, scientists still haven’t found the deep-space radiations that can act on pills. So there’s a real risk in using them. At the same time pills are much better than tampons because they don’t consume much area.
Also the fact all should know is, waste disposal system at International Space Station which purifies urine to water is not designed for handling blood. If blood get entered to the system , it can get tackled. According to Mr. Bob Bagdigan the project manager of ISS(International Space Station) life support system, “it is a real challenge to distill urine in to water with the absence of gravity”.
(The environmental control and Life Support System, ECLSS is responsible for Water Recovery System(WRS) and Oxygen Generation System(OGS). Both of these systems are connected together and the WRS is capable of reclaiming waste water(crew member urine, cabin humidity condensate, extra vehicular activities) in to clean water. )
Compared to pills, Intra Uterine Device(IUD) and subdermal implants are having more positive advantages to the body as they don’t act as daily dosages. Once they are connected to the body they are active for few years without any doubt. But there are so many questions arise like, do IUD get shifted during launch due to high Gs( High level acceleration )? Can subdermal implants make uncomfortable feelings to astronauts due to change in gravity? And these questions never being answered on point with real experiences so they still remained as questions with hypothetical explanations with terrestrial experiments in progress.
In past missions there were several instances where female Astronauts have experienced Retrograde Menstruation flow and it is considered that it happened because blood got dispersed to abdominal cavity instead of getting confined to pelvis.(Sampson in 1927, Scott et al.in 1953,Jennings and Baker in 2000)
All these experiences were gathered from short duration space missions and it is unpredictable how this phenomena will affect female astronauts in a long duration space mission like mission MARS which is 140 miles away from Earth.
Experiments
Gynecological experiments related to Menstruation on space is not much known as the limitations in potential when the exposure to radiation is really complex. In the journal Gynecologic Risk Mitigation Considerations for Long-Duration Spaceflight by Steller, Jon G.; Blue, Rebecca S.; Burns, Roshan; Bayuse, Tina M.; Antonsen, Erik L.; Jain, Varsha; Blackwell, Michele M.; Jennings, Richard T , it is said that In many experiments regarding mammalian reproductive system rats were used to predict these real scenarios that can be happened but still scientists don’t have a clear idea of what will happen in long duration space mission as those experiments are done under controlled environments on Earth with limited conditions.
References
G. I Meleshkoet. al.;Risk to Astronauts Health During Space Safe Passage
Microgravity and infertility by Jaiyeola O. Paul, Oluwafemi A. Funmilola and Abdullahi S. Ayegba
“We Need to Talk About What Happens When You Get Your Period in Space” by Amy Lynn,
A Brief History of Menstruating in Outer Space by Christina Cauterucci
npj, Microgravity report Medically induced amenorrhea in female astronauts
How do women deal with having a period in space
Gynecologic Risk Mitigation Considerations for Long-Duration Spaceflight by Steller, Jon G.; Blue, Rebecca S.; Burns, Roshan; Bayuse, Tina M.; Antonsen, Erik L.; Jain, Varsha; Blackwell, Michele M.; Jennings, Richard T
International Space Station Environmental control and Life Support System. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/pdf/104840main_eclss.pdf
Marshal Space flight Centre. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/beyondearth/spacelife.html#.YHeOzegzbIV
