CHENNAI: The latest buzz is that 56 girls died in Tata Hospital, Mumbai because of the use of sanitary napkins. First of all, there is no Tata Hospital; there’s just Tata Memorial Hospital that has no idea where this news began or how it spread. It would be impossible to cover up the death of so many girls.
When women across the country have access to sanitary napkins of different kinds and brands, why did only 56 die? And that too in a single hospital?
The message says because the girls had used only a single pad throughout the day and that the chemical in the pad changed the ‘liquid into a gel, the one that causes uterine cancer’. What’s weird is that the message says if the pad is not changed then the blood turns green.
While it might not be true that liquid changes into a gel or that the blood turns green, experts have said that it is dangerous to use the same pad throughout the day, especially because the pad contains certain carcinogenic materials. Experts claim that sanitary napkins contain crude oil, plastic and other potentially harmful chemicals that are also used in certain other products.
Also, the chemicals used in the absorbent materials of napkins along with bleaching agent have been proved as harmful. May be the sender of the message was talking about the yeast growth due to wetness of the pad. However, it is true that sanitary napkins do contain harmful chemicals, which is why it is crucial to constantly change them frequently.
While usually sharing such messages is discouraged, in this case while the message may not hold any truth, it might help women become aware about how to use napkins.