Reply #17: I was a very advanced and compulsive reader for my age [View All]

and I used to read my mother's magazines, including a feature in the Lady's Home Journal called "Tell Me Doctor," whjch was mostly about gynecological problems.

I thus learned about menstruation before I was officially supposed to, and I knew from the magazines that the blood came from the uterus, which I knew to be in the abdomen. I couldn't figure out how the blood got out, but I concluded that it must come out of the navel and that one dabbed at it occasionally with a "sanitary napkin." (My knowledge of anatomy was incomplete at the time.)

Then when I was in fifth grade, we saw the movie and received the pamphlet put out by the sanitary pad company, and I was surprised to learn how the blood actually got out.