[Minutemen]

with all due respect, what did women in the 3rd world do before Johnson & Johnson invented the "tampon"?

[This Just In]

I asked that same question.

[AnnaZ]

“She told me she was going home from work because she had her period and could no longer afford sanitary protection or cotton wool.”

[Fairview]

what did women in the 3rd world do before Johnson & Johnson invented the "tampon"?

I don't know what they did in Africa, but in this country they used old rags torn up and wrapped up in a piece of cotton cloth. This construction was then pinned inside their drawers, and washed when it was saturated. Not very pleasant, comfortable, fragrant, or hygienic.

[Donald Meaker]

absorbent pads are used externally in most of the world. They are not comfortable. They leak, so most women do not move about much on those days.

A really poor country loses a lot when they lose a quarter of its work force for 3 to 5 days a month.

[TaMoDee]

In Asian countries, that I'm familiar with, the females would wear a narrow cotton cloth diapper like item. The items would be washed out and reused.

I'm sure that the same type of item was used here in the US back in the "Good Olde Daze".

[U S Army EOD]

You don't need one when you are always pregnant.

[F.J. Mitchell]

Remember when ladies were menstruating, they were said to be on the rag?

Here in this first world country, I don't remember my Mother ever possessing a box of koteks much less Tampons, I would have surely have noticed the box.