The concept of fertilizing plants with period blood has been blowing up on social media recently. It's not a new idea, but it's definitely getting some renewed attention. Most of the social media posts I've seen haven't gone more in-depth than "blood has nitrogen and phosphorus and those are good for plants". While it is true that nitrogen and phosphorus are good for your plants, it's not that simple. Here are a few reasons why you might want to think twice before incorporating period blood into your plant care routine.
First of all, let's talk about what periods actually consist of. There's the blood of course, but there's also tissue debris, mucus, and cervicovaginal fluid in there. That makes for a whole lot of things exiting the body mixed in with the blood. Those things are going to decompose. Not only is decomposing human tissue an unappealing thought, but it's also going to attract flies.
Periods also contain a significant amount of bacteria which, inside of our bodies, makes for a healthy microbiome. Once that fluid has exited the body it becomes a breeding ground for potentially dangerous microbes. There's no way for you to know what's in your menstrual fluid short of lab testing, and with lab testing, any such tissue is treated as a potential biohazard from the moment it exits the body.
What if periods were just blood? One of the most common garden fertilizers out there is blood meal (there's also bone meal). Blood meal is an abattoir by-product made by putting animal blood through a heating process, and then a drying process. Though it is commonly used it carries risks of its own. We won't go in-depth about blood meal, but let's talk about some of the risks associated with human blood. It can contain blood-borne pathogens like Hepatitis B and C, as well as HIV. Hepatitis C has been found to live outside the body for up to 6 weeks. Again, not something you want lingering in your soil.
Even if using period blood as a natural fertilizer were to be risk-free, it's worth considering that it changes in physical and chemical composition from month to month and period haver to period haver. There's no way to reliably or accurately reproduce the composition of a period. This means that its effects on the health of your plants will be inconsistent and unreliable.
If you prefer organic fertilizers, worm castings or fish emulsion are good options. Fish emulsion is stinky but effective. Personally, I just use a water-soluble houseplant fertilizer, and it does me just fine.
If you do want to try this way of fertilizing your plants, please keep it to houseplants. Do not use menstrual blood to fertilize any food-bearing plants.
NOTES
A gentle reminder that not all period havers are women, please be respectful in any comments. Thank you!
Also, I know that pictures of fruit are cringy when it comes to talking about periods/anatomy but how else do we make clear what we're talking about without getting graphic?
Unsplash Image by Charles Deluvio