A menstrual health and fertility educator, founder of Círculo Perfeito and one of Portugal’s leading voices in menstrual literacy, Lemos returns with a revised and expanded edition of “Period: A Guide to Keeping It Simple”, a book that has already sold more than 10,000 copies and quietly become a staple in Portuguese school playgrounds and family bookshelves.
And perhaps that’s exactly what makes it powerful: this is not simply a book about periods. It’s a permission slip to start talking.
This updated edition introduces new themes including body literacy, female health and a deeper understanding of the menstrual cycle as part of growing up, not something to hide from.
Because despite progress, the first period remains, for many girls, an experience wrapped in confusion and silence.
“We still experience menstruation through shame, silence and lack of knowledge”
writes Lemos.
And she’s right. Even in a world obsessed with wellness, empowerment and self-care, menstruation often remains oddly uncomfortable territory.
Schools skim over it. Families don’t always know how to begin the conversation. And many girls still reach menarche without truly understanding what is happening to their bodies.
Period exists precisely to fill that gap.
Inspired by her own childhood, a curious 12-year-old devouring period guides handed out by tampon brands at school and impatiently waiting to “grow up”, Lemos wrote the book she wishes she had back then: accessible, science-based, reassuring and deeply human.
What makes the project even more interesting is that the book doesn’t only resonate with teenagers.
Mothers read it before handing it to their daughters. Fathers use it to find the right words. Adult women discover, sometimes for the first time, information they were never taught about their own bodies.
Because an entire generation grew up without proper menstrual education.
And another generation is refusing to repeat that pattern.
With playful illustrations by Mafalda Fernandes, relatable stories and refreshingly direct language, Period succeeds in doing something surprisingly radical: it makes menstruation feel normal.
At a time when conversations around mental health, identity and body awareness are finally becoming more open, perhaps menstrual literacy deserves the same space spoken about with honesty, ease and absolutely no shame attached.
🍋: Hi Patrícia, thank you so much for speaking with us. Your book has become an important reference for young girls and families navigating conversations around menstruation. With this newly revised and expanded edition, you continue to challenge stigma and make menstrual literacy feel more open, modern and accessible. We’d love to talk about the inspiration behind the book, the importance of body literacy and why these conversations matter more than ever.
🍋: What inspired you to revisit and expand Period A Guide to Keeping It Simple for this new edition?
The first edition of the book was published in late 2020, and over the past five years,
the conversation around menstrual health has evolved. After 11 editions, it made
sense to review the content, update the scientific information, and add topics based
on feedback from readers, parents, and healthcare professionals, and that I realized
were still needing further exploration. This new version aims to stay true to the approach that has proven useful in the past: simplifying without infantilizing, informing without causing alarm, and helping people view their bodies with greater clarity and less shame.
🍋: Your book approaches menstruation in such an honest and approachable way. Why was it important for you to create this kind of tone from the beginning?
Honest language matters. The more naturally we can speak about periods, discharge, pain, sweat, or body changes, the less power shame has over women’s lives. Women’s bodies have historically been subjected to an aesthetic standard that
presents them as clean, silent, controlled, and almost sterile. But real bodies are not like that. Real bodies bleed, swell, leak, smell, make noises, change texture, change mood. They are alive, and alive means “a bit messy”. When we grow up disconnected from that reality, we learn to experience perfectly normal bodily functions with embarrassment or disgust. We know from psychological research that menstrual shame and body disgust are associated with higher levels of body surveillance and poorer body image, particularly during adolescence, which is also when we begin to see the first signs of eating disorders, sexual shame, fear of intimacy, and chronic self-monitoring. So it was very important for me to create a tone that felt direct, intelligent, warm, and unafraid of reality. I wanted people to feel they could read the book without feeling judged, infantilised, or “handled with gloves”.
🍋: Do you remember your own first experiences learning about periods? How did they shape the way you wrote this book?
Of course I remember! I was that girl who eagerly awaited the arrival of her first period. I really wanted to get my period and everything it promised to bring with it: a grown-up body, boobs, hips. I was a gymnast and didn’t have any of those things, and, in fact, I still don’t *laughs* but no one could take away my excitement about feeling grown-up. That deeply shaped the way I wrote this book. Because, even though there’s a lot of focus today on the difficult parts of the menstrual experience (and they exist and need to be talked about), I didn’t want to write a book where menstruation appeared only as a problem, a nuisance, or a monthly biological tragedy. I also wanted to preserve that sense of curiosity, discovery, and even excitement that many girls feel but almost never see represented.
🍋: Why do you think menstruation is still surrounded by shame or discomfort, even in 2026?
Mainly because cultural change is slower than scientific progress. We may live in an era of health apps, hormone tracking, and social media activism, but many people still grow up absorbing the same old messages: periods are messy, embarrassing, inconvenient, emotional, or something to hide. There is also a deeper discomfort around female bodies in general, especially if those bodies bleed, leak, fluctuate, age, or cannot be fully controlled. Menstruation challenges the idea that the ideal body is silent, tidy, and predictable. And stigma reproduces itself quietly. If a mother never had open conversations about periods, she may struggle to have them with her daughter. If schools teach menstruation quickly and awkwardly, children learn it is awkward. If pain is dismissed medically, people internalise that suffering is normal. The good news is that things are changing. Younger generations are far more informed and willing to question silence. But we are still in a transitional moment between secrecy and literacy.
🍋: You often speak about “menstrual literacy.” What does that term really mean to you?
Menstrual literacy means understanding the menstrual cycle not just as bleeding, but as a meaningful biological process connected to overall health. It means knowing what a normal cycle can look like, recognising when something may need medical attention, understanding ovulation, hormones, pain, cervical fluid, mood changes, contraception, fertility, and how lifestyle factors can affect the cycle. But menstrual literacy is also emotional and cultural. It is being able to talk about the body without shame, fear, or misinformation. A person can know how to use a pad and still be completely disconnected from their body. Ultimately, menstrual literacy is body literacy. It gives people language, context, autonomy, and the ability to make informed decisions about their health.
🍋: Why is it so important for young girls to understand their bodies before their first period arrives?
A girl’s first period is a biological and a psychological event too. If a girl reaches menarche without understanding what is happening, the experience can feel frightening, humiliating, or even traumatic. Studies consistently show that girls who are prepared beforehand report less fear, less shame, and more confidence around menstruation. And preparation shapes the relationship they build with their bodies afterwards. If the message is “your body is disgusting, inconvenient, or dangerous”, that leaves a mark. Girls deserve to arrive at puberty with knowledge, not panic. They should know what blood looks like, what symptoms are common, what is not normal, how to ask for help, and that menstruation does not make them irrational, impure, dramatic, or weak. Also menstrual education should not begin the week before puberty. Body literacy should develop gradually and naturally from childhood, in age-appropriate ways.
🍋: What are some of the biggest misconceptions young people still have about menstruation?
A lot of young people are receiving fragments of information from TikTok, friends, influencers, pornography, random wellness accounts but not enough structured, evidence-based education that helps them build an actual framework for understanding their bodies. One major misconception is that the menstrual cycle is only relevant if someone wants to get pregnant. In reality, the cycle is tied to endocrine, metabolic, emotional, and overall health. There is also still a surprising amount of confusion about basic physiology: many teenagers don’t fully understand ovulation, fertile windows, vaginal discharge, or the difference between the vulva and the vagina. And thanks to social media, misinformation spreads at frightening speed: detox myths, hormonal “hacks”, cycle syncing presented as rigid science, fearmongering around contraception… Another is the idea that periods are supposed to be unbearable. Many young people genuinely believe intense pain, vomiting, fainting, or missing school every month is just “part of being a woman”. That normalisation delays diagnosis of conditions like endometriosis and adenomyosis. And culturally, the old myths persist: that periods make girls irrational, that PMS is exaggerated, that menstrual blood is dirty, that talking openly about menstruation is inappropriate.
🍋: How can parents make conversations about periods feel more natural and less intimidating at home?
First, by educating themselves, especially if they grew up with very little information or had a negative or shame-filled experience themselves. Children quickly absorb discomfort, even when nothing is being said explicitly. Then, by using ordinary everyday moments to introduce the topic naturally, without turning it into a huge “sit down, we need to talk” event. Children are naturally curious, and often the best conversations happen when we simply follow their lead. If my 7-year-old daughter asks me when she’ll get breasts, that’s a perfect opportunity to explain that puberty also brings body hair, pimples and menstruation. I think the goal is not to have one perfect conversation, but many small, calm and matter-of-fact ones over time. Periods shouldn’t feel like a secret revealed at the last minute or a crisis waiting to happen. They should feel like a normal part of how bodies grow and function. And honestly, children usually handle these conversations far better than adults do. Adults are the ones bringing decades of awkwardness into the room
🍋: Do you think schools are currently doing enough when it comes to menstrual education?
This issue is deeply uneven, both geographically and socially. On one hand, I continue to work with private schools that genuinely recognise the importance of menstrual education, invest in staff training and try to create supportive strategies for students from an early age. There has also been progress in public schools, namely through recent efforts from the Direção Geral de Educação and programmes providing free menstrual products. But we are also living through a complicated moment. There are still school boards, teachers and parent associations who believe menstruation should only be discussed within the narrow context of biology or reproduction classes, as if periods were merely a fertility mechanism and not something that affects comfort, self-image, pain, sport, concentration, mental health and daily life. And we cannot forget that Portugal is not just Lisbon and Porto. You drive 50 or 100 kilometres inland and, in some places, the reality around menstruation feels twenty years behind. Many girls still grow up with very little practical information, a lot of embarrassment and the feeling that this is not something to openly discuss. So, are schools doing enough? Some are doing excellent work. But overall, no, not yet. Menstrual literacy is still treated as optional when, in reality, it has a direct impact on wellbeing, school attendance and how young people learn to relate to their own bodies.
🍋: Your book was written for younger readers, but many adults are reading it too. Why do you think that is?
I think it’s because many adults are looking for information they themselves never received and because they genuinely want to do better, both for themselves and for the younger people around them. A lot of women realise, often surprisingly late, that nobody ever properly explained their bodies to them beyond the basics of reproduction or “you’ll bleed once a month.” So when they pick up a book written for younger readers and suddenly understand things more clearly, that says a lot about the gaps that still exist in adult education too. I also think there’s something reassuring about information being presented in a simple, direct and non-patronising way. Adults are tired of either hyper-clinical language or wellness nonsense wrapped in moon emojis. They want clear, practical information without shame, fear or fluff. And many parents (teachers, etc.) are reading it because they want their children to grow up with a healthier relationship to the body than the one they inherited themselves. That, to me, is probably the most hopeful part.
🍋: How different is this generation’s relationship with menstruation compared to when you were growing up in the 90s?
What an interesting question! I’d never thought about that before. I don’t think we’re all that far from the reality of the ’90s… and I have to admit, this answer feels like a punch in the gut… Young people today have more information, more language, more visibility. They can find entire communities online talking openly about periods, pain, hormones, PMDD, endometriosis. That simply didn’t exist when I was growing up. But shame is stubborn… I think silence just became more sophisticated. Girls still learn very early that menstruation shouldn’t interfere with being “easy”, productive, attractive, or low-maintenance. The packaging of the topic changed, but the discomfort underneath it often didn’t.
🍋: Why do you believe language plays such a big role in the stigma surrounding periods?
Because language shapes reality. UNESCO and UNICEF have both highlighted how shame and misinformation around menstruation affect education and wellbeing globally. The words we use around menstruation define whether it is seen as normal, inconvenient, shameful, powerful, embarrassing, healthy, “dirty”, or even medically relevant. There is also a cultural habit of using menstrual language as an insult. If a woman is assertive, angry, emotional, or simply disagreeing, people still say she is “PMS-ing” or menopausal. That creates a subconscious association between female biology and irrationality. And then there’s silence itself. Many people can discuss fertility, pregnancy, or menopause more comfortably than menstruation, despite periods being a normal biological function experienced for decades of life. When something cannot be named directly, it becomes easier to stigmatise, mock, dismiss, or ignore…
🍋: In your opinion, why should menstruation be treated as a broader health conversation rather than simply a “girls’ issue”?
Because we make up more than half of the world’s population, when we talk about menstrual health and literacy, we’re talking about public health, girls’ education, and a more just and equitable world. No one should feel disadvantaged because they menstruate, and unfortunately, that is not yet the reality for millions.
🍋: What would you most like a young reader to feel after finishing your book?
Excitement about what lies ahead, a sense of calm, and confidence in the knowledge they’ve gained from reading. What I’ve heard most from the girls is: “I feel ready!” Is there anything better than feeling prepared? How amazing would the world be if we felt ready for whatever lies ahead?
🍋: Why was it important for you to make this guide feel light, accessible and even fun at times?
First, because I am that person (I love a good laugh). Second, because (in general) I think Portuguese people are a bit of a drag *laughs* It’s the saudade, it’s the fado, everything is sad, melancholic, gloomy; it’s all about what could have been but wasn’t. Kids don’t deserve all that weight in something as fun as growing up!
🍋: What conversations around women’s health do you think are still missing from mainstream culture?
I don’t even know where to start… We still have a very fragmented conversation around women’s health. We discuss isolated symptoms. We still romanticise female endurance far too much. We are finally beginning to talk more openly about perimenopause and menopause, but there is still enormous ignorance around how hormonal changes affect cognition, sleep, mood, cardiovascular health, libido, musculoskeletal health, and quality of life (that’s menstrual literacy). Mainstream culture is comfortable with women performing health (check your Instagram and you’ll find women eating well, exercising, optimising themselves) but still uncomfortable with women speaking frankly about blood, pain, sexuality, fertility struggles, childbirth, miscarriage, pelvic floor dysfunction, or ageing (not the “ageing gracefully” thing, just the “normal ageing”).
🍋: After selling more than 10,000 copies, what has surprised you most about readers’ reactions to the book?
From the girls, it was the excitement of discovering how amazing the body is and the desire to live fully in it. That was very much the message I wanted to convey, but I’m still surprised every time I realize I’ve succeeded in doing so.
🍋: What advice would you give to parents who feel unsure about how to begin these conversations with their children?
Don’t overcomplicate things. Take the topic of sex out of the picture for now. Your 12-year-old daughter is grossed out when we talk to her about kissing on the mouth *laughs* Give her practical information right away: how to manage this and why it’s happening. Help her choose the menstrual product that works best for her, and teach her how to dispose menstrual pads, tampons, etc., properly. No shame, no burden. Everything is fine with her body. She’s healthy and growing. And that’s the beautiful part of having children: watching them grow.
🍋: Finally, what do you hope the future of menstrual education looks like in Portugal?
I hope we move away from fear-based education, and that it becomes scientifically accurate and completely normalised. My hope is that the next generation grows up able to say: “I know how my body works. I know when something is wrong. I know I deserve to be taken seriously.”
That would be a beautiful revolution.
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