The First Person in The World To Use Sanitary Napkins

He was the first person in the world to use sanitary napkins

Another Indian film has become popular recently, and its name is full of men's joy: Soft Pad Man. As the name suggests, this is a film about aunties, telling the story of an Indian man, how to promote high-quality and low-cost sanitary napkins, and ultimately benefit thousands of Indian women.

Sounds ridiculous? This is a must-have item for girls. How can a small bag not have lipstick? But this movie has a real prototype in real life: Arunachalan Muruganantham launched a "sanitary napkin revolution" that eventually changed the health history of the entire country.

Buying sanitary napkins is not enough to buy milk

The story began in 1998. Arunachalam Muruganantham found that his newlywed wife Shantui always went to the toilet with dirty rags and other things.

He asked several times, "What would you do?" The answer: "It's none of your business." Driven by curiosity, Arunachalam followed his wife and found that it was a sanitary napkin that his wife used during menstruation and placed on her lower body to stop bleeding.

He didn't understand: "Don't you have sanitary napkins? Why not?" His wife asked him back: "If I use sanitary napkins, how can we get money for milk?"

Arunachalan mustered up the courage to go to the grocery store and buy a pack of sanitary napkins. When he opened it, he was shocked: Isn't this just cotton? The cost of a few cents was sold at 40 times the price through the merchant's packaging!

What many people don’t know is that only 12% of women in India can afford sanitary napkins that cost a few dollars, and in rural southern India where Arunachalan lives, less than one in ten women use them.

The vast majority of people lack basic knowledge of physiological hygiene and use dirty rags, paper towels, and even sand and dust to wipe their lower bodies during menstruation. The whole society believes that menstrual blood is unclean, and people dare not expose the changed menstrual cloths to the sun. 70% of reproductive diseases are caused by unclean menstrual blood.

Arunachalam, who loved his wife deeply, made a decision immediately: make sanitary napkins for himself and use them himself, leaving his wife with dirty rags.

Soon the sanitary napkins were ready. Of course, the first mouse was Shati. But the whole society regarded menstruation as unclean, how could a newlywed wife be shy and express her menstrual feelings to her husband? It didn't take long for her to refuse to be a guinea pig.

Arunachalam targeted his sisters. Out of shame, his sisters refused to do the experiment. He turned to female students from the local medical college for help, but the results were dismal. Only 3 out of 20 were willing to share their experiences.

The first person in the world to use sanitary napkins

Finally, Arunachalan had to make himself a guinea pig. At the age of 29, he became the first person in the world to use sanitary napkins.

He found some sheep's blood and put it in a small bottle and hung it on his body as a "uterus". Put the sanitary napkin on your crotch and connect the catheter to the small bottle and sanitary napkin.

The experiment began: whether riding a bicycle, walking or running, he would squeeze the bottle from time to time to feel the absorption effect of the sanitary napkin. After five days of experiments, he realized for the first time that being a woman was too difficult. His pants were dirty and smelly with menstrual blood, and they were wet all day and uncomfortable.

This good man who was determined to research the product was considered a lunatic by the villagers.

His wife couldn't stand the gossip and finally filed for divorce 18 months after marriage and moved back to her parents' home alone.

His old mother and sisters also thought he had a mental problem and were ashamed of his family. She even ran away from home and didn't want to live with him

Later, the villagers rushed to his house and agreed to let the wizard do it for him, otherwise they would drive him out. Under pressure from the outside world and the outside world, he had to move out of the village and live alone.

But at that time, Arunachalan didn't care about the outside world's opinion. He had only one thing in his mind: to promote sanitary napkins in India, at least for the women around him, to use them at a preferential price.

Sanitary napkin revolution

Arunachalan did not give up. He wanted to know how to improve the water absorption rate of sanitary napkins and reduce costs.

He dropped out of school early and knew that he had limited knowledge. He humbly asked university professors for advice and volunteered to be a teaching assistant. Under the guidance of the professor, he realized that the biggest problem with the simple sanitary napkins he had made before was: the material was not suitable.

He came up with a solution: call some overseas companies that make sanitary napkins, claiming to be the owner of a textile mill in southern India.

It worked, and he got something strange: cellulose from tree bark. After two years and three months of speculation, he thoroughly figured out what the sanitary napkins were made of.

But there was a new problem: there was a material that had to be broken down by a machine. However, machines using this technology can sell for thousands of dollars.

Poor Arunachalan decided to reinvent his craft.

After four and a half years of groping, he finally came up with a low-cost method:

1. Use a machine like a kitchen grinder to break down the hard fibers into a fluffy material;

2. Use a mold to shape the material into a rectangular sanitary napkin;

3. Add non-woven packaging;

4. Ultraviolet disinfection.

It only takes four steps and one hour to make sanitary napkins. The production process is simple and the unit price is greatly reduced: 200 to 250 qualified sanitary napkins can be produced every day, and each one costs only 2.5 rupees.

But Arunachalam did not take the opportunity to make a fortune. He spent 18 months to produce 250 machines, all of which were sent to rural areas to encourage rural women to participate in the production of sanitary napkins and earn money to support their families.

Eventually, 1,300 villages in 23 states in India put the machines into production.

His vision was far more than that of a profit-seeking businessman: he provided the sanitary napkins he produced for free to the girls who participated in the coming-of-age ceremony, and led the staff to popularize physiological health knowledge for them.

At first, the girls resisted, thinking it was a shame. Gradually, more and more girls secretly asked him for sanitary napkins. This was the best coming-of-age gift they had received.

Moved by his honesty and hard work, Shati returned to him and worked with him to promote sanitary napkins in rural schools.

Thanks to this major move, 23% of female high school students who used to have to take a leave of absence to get married now have the opportunity to continue their studies.

He created at least one million jobs for Indian women;

His invention was introduced to 106 countries including Kenya, Nigeria and Bangladesh to popularize sanitary napkins there.

Menstruation is no longer a taboo topic in society, and women no longer need to secretly change the dirty cloth for menstruation.

The President of India awarded him the National Innovation Award for his invention.

In 2014, he was named one of the "100 Most Influential People" by Time magazine.

People gave him a funny and great nickname: Pad.