Sanitary napkin

A sanitary napkin, sanitary towel, sanitary pad, menstrual pad, or pad is an absorbent item worn by a woman while she is menstruating, while she is recovering from vaginal surgery, for lochia (post-birth bleeding), after an abortion, or in any other situation where it is necessary to absorb a flow of blood from the vagina.

These pads are not to be confused with generally higher absorbency incontinence pads, which are worn by men or women who have urinary incontinence problems or experience stress incontinence. Menstrual pads may be used by some people for this purpose.

Through the ages women have used different forms of menstrual protection. Menstrual pads have been mentioned as early as the 10th century, in the Suda, where Hypatia, who lived in the 4th century AD, was said to have thrown one of her used menstrual rags at an admirer in an attempt to discourage him. Women often used strips of folded old cloth (rags) to catch their menstrual flow, which is why the term "on the rag" is used to refer to menstruation.

Disposable menstrual pads grew from a Ben Franklin invention created to help stop wounded soldiers from bleeding, but appear to have been first commercially available from around 1888 with the Southball's pad. The first commercially available American disposable napkins were Lister's Towels created by Johnson & Johnson in 1888. Disposable pads had their start with nurses using their wood pulp bandages to catch their menstrual flow, creating a pad that was made from easily obtainable materials and inexpensive enough to throw away after use. Kotex's first advertisement for products made with this wood pulp (Cellucotton) appeared in 1888. Several of the first disposable pad manufacturers were also manufacturers of bandages, which could give an indication of what these products were like.

Until disposable sanitary pads were created, cloth or reusable pads were widely used to collect menstrual blood. Women often used a variety of home-made menstrual pads which they crafted from various fabrics, or other absorbent materials, to collect menstrual blood. Even after disposable pads were commercially available, for several years they were too expensive for many women to afford. When they could be afforded, women were allowed to place money in a box so that they would not have to speak to the clerk and take a box of Kotex pads from the counter themselves. It took several years for disposable menstrual pads to become commonplace. However, they are now used nearly exclusively in most of the industrialized world.

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