Change and conveyance of perception about menstruation from childhood to motherhood

Menstruation refers to a physical and biological process that takes place in every 28-30 days, starting with menarche, which is the first periodical bleeding of every healthy woman outside of pregnancy, and lasting until menopause. This process is also a socio-cultural phenomenon with medical, religious, sociological, and psychological aspects. Many restrictive and exclusionary taboos, discourses and practices related to menstruation have been produced. Therefore, it is important not only to inform women about menarche and menstruation, but also to examine the information that handed down from generation to generation and its quality. In this context, the aim of our study is to research and examine the experiences and opinions about the menarche experience and the transfer of information about menstruation from mother to daughter. For this purpose, the research sought answers to the following questions: What is menstruation and how is it defined? How was the menarche experience? How is the transfer of information about menstruation in the mother daughter relationship? How do views on menstruation change from childhood to adulthood? vii The data for this study, which was carried out with the qualitative research method in the phenomenology pattern, were collected through in depth interviews with 50 mothers residing in Izmir and whose daughters had menarche. The importance of this study, which is based on ontology as a philosophical assumption and on feminism as an interpretative framework, is to try to understand the transfer of information about menarche/menstruation and experience from mother to daughter, and also to examine how this knowledge is transferred in the experience of motherhood. According to the findings of this study, one of every two mothers could have knowledge before menarche, but almost all mothers transfer information and experience about menarche/menstruation to their daughters. It is seen that mothers care about transferring the right information instead of their own experiences surrounded by taboos, to their daughters. Key Words: Women's Studies, Menarche, Menstruation, Motherhood, Taboo, Mother-Daughter