Everybody, men and women alike, would like mommy to get back to her good looking shape as soon as possible after giving birth. But is that realistic? And what are the steps to take to lose all the extra pounds? It is good to know what to expect, because otherwise you might grow very disappointed and frustrated. No, you won’t be back in your pre-natal shape when you step out of the hospital. The good news is that you can get back there in 6 to 8 months. Just be realistic, patient and perseverant.

First of all, consider that it took nine months to put on those pounds and it is unrealistic to expect to get rid of them overnight. You should give yourself just at least about the same time for the process to be reversed. Don’t pack clothes that you wore before being pregnant to wear when coming home from the hospital. Even after giving birth, there are still lots of extra fluids in your body and it will take about 2 or 3 weeks to eliminate them. Then, consider that it takes about 4 weeks for the uterus to contract back to its normal size.

There are three basic ways that will help you lose the extra pounds:

• Breastfeeding
• Healthy diet
• Exercise

Let’s briefly discuss about each one.

BREASTFEEDING is not only very healthy for the baby, but will also help the mother lose weight, since producing the milk requires about 500 calories every day. That can help reduce some of the fat that was gained during pregnancy. Actually one of the reasons your body put on weight during pregnancy was to store the energy it takes to breastfeed the baby. Therefore, losing calories through breastfeeding completes a natural program.

The other two methods –healthy diet and exercise are the basic weight loss methods in any situation. There are still a few specific details that should be applied in this particular case:

• Don’t diet for the first three months after birth. Start by just eating a well-balanced diet and moving your body.
• Wait 6 weeks after a vaginal birth and 8 weeks after a c-section before you start exercising.
• Low-impact exercises are recommended, such as walking or swimming.
• Focus on nutrition, not on weight-loss diets.
• Eat several, small, healthy meals a day.
• Be patient and perseverant.
• Ask your doctor before changing your diet or starting any new exercise program.                                                 Ruth Taylor

Once you’ve tried a tampon, you don’t want to use pads again. When wearing a tampon you can almost forget that it’s one of those days. Tampons are comfortable, discrete and much more practical than pads when you do sports. With tampons at hand, you won’t have to worry again about plans of doing some activities being ruined just because you are having your period. Another good thing about tampons is that they save you of the bad smell.

But is using tampons also healthy? The most serious risk about using tampons is toxic shock syndrome (TSS), a rare but very dangerous illness. While with your pad you can see when it is time to change it, it is not the same with a tampon. When using a tampon, you will have to remember to change it every four to six hours. Leaving one in too long, like all day or all night, can cause TSS.

Many women tend to use the most absorbent tampon thinking that this way they won’t have to change it as often. But when you keep a tampon in too long, bacteria can grow. If tampons are kept in for a long time, that gives the bacteria plenty of time to grow. These bacteria can grow within the tampon, enter the body from inside the vagina, then invade the bloodstream, releasing toxins that can cause a very severe, and occasionally life-threatening illness –TSS.

Symptoms of TSS include high fever, vomiting or diarrhea, severe muscle aches, a feeling of extreme weakness or dizziness, and a rash that looks like a sunburn. If you ever have these symptoms while wearing a tampon, remove it and go to the nearest emergency department as soon as possible.

So, while tampons can be most useful in some cases, doctors recommend that they be used alternatively with pads in order to prevent TSS. Or, even better, use high quality pads that can offer you high protection and comfort without putting your health at risk.

Anion Love Moon Sanitary Napkins produced by Winalite are made of best quality materials, they provide high absorbency and disease protection. They have a special unique layer of negative ions, which helps eliminate odor, diminish inflammation, relieve fatigue and improve immunity. Anion Sanitary Napkins allow air flow and they are very comfortable.

In conclusion, consider using Anion Sanitary Napkins for your best comfort and health.

Ruth Taylor

Image by Wendy * Darling via Flickr

After looking at some important qualities of Anion Love Moon Sanitary Pads, like the absorbency level and the breathability, today I am briefly going to write about a characteristic that some would not consider important, but for us every detail matters.

The bottom layer of the Anion Love Moon Sanitary Napkins consists of a food gum adhesive. While other brands have an adhesive base layer used for industry, the adhesive base layer the Anion pads come with is one used for food products. This makes it non-allergenic and safe for sensitive skin.

And there is another important consequence of this characteristic: this adhesive peels off easily. You might not consider this important, and I could understand that. Sometimes we don’t realise how good something is until something bad happens or we no longer have it. I don’t know if this happened to you, but it happened to me to ruin some of my favourite pieces of underwear because of a pad (I think it was an Always) that stuck so well that it was very hard to peel all the adhesive part off.

As I have aleady said, this might not be considered important by some manufacturers or customers, but the Winalite team pursues high quality in the slightest details. That is why we are proud of our Winalite Love Moon Anion Sanitary Napkins.

As I have promissed, after seeing how important it is for sanitary pads to allow air flow, I am going to briefly present a test we did to check the breathability of an Anion sanitary pad and an Always sanitary pad.

We poured warm water in two glasses (just from the tap):

Then we covered the glasses with an Anion and an Always sanitary pad making sure the pads stick well all around the glass, for the steam not to flow out on the sides.

Then we placed two glasses up side down over the first ones.

As you can see, both upper glasses were clear at first…

…but after a couple of minutes we could see steam being formed in the glass covering the Anion sanitary napkin, which means that the vapors could flow through the napkin.

The glass covering the Always sanitary pad remained clear, which means that the pad did not allow air flow, so it is not breathable.

In conclusion, Anion Sanitary Napkins have this most important quality of allowing air flow, which makes them very comfortable and healthy.

Have you ever tried to see how long you can stay under water or how long you can hold your breath? Or have you ever choked and felt the desperate need to breathe? If you have, then you know how precious a good breath of fresh air is. Oxygen is the most important element for our life.

But why is it so important for sanitary pads to be breathable?

If you have been using regular sanitary pads, you have most probably experienced irritation and felt very uncomfortable. One of the reasons this happens is because of the sanitary pads not being breathable. In order for the sanitary pads not to allow the liquid to flow through, the manufacturers use an impermeable bottom layer, most often made of plastic, which does not allow liquid or air to pass through either. This way, moisture and heat are kept inside, creating a very good environment for bacteria to develop.

Most of the bacteria that can cause women’s diseases are anaerobe, which means they will die within 30 seconds to 1 minute in oxygen. That is why it is very important for sanitary pads and pantyliners to allow air flow.

Anion Love Moon sanitary napkins have a base film which is permeable to air but not to water. This way, no leakage will occur, while oxygen will still be allowed to flow through, stopping bacteria from developing and keeping you healthy and feeling comfortable.

In the following posts we are going to show some tests that check the breathability of different brands sanitary pads.

I hope you understand better now why it is so important for sanitary pads to be breathable and I am looking forward to sharing more practical information with you about this. Hope you all have a great week!

Ruth Taylor

Here is another absorbency test –Anion vs Kotex– the last one in this series. Someone might say they are getting tired of hearing the same story, and I could understand that. What is harder for me to understand is why some women would go through the same bad experiences with sanitary pads month after month, and still not grow tired and decide to change the brand they are used to. You don’t have to feel uncomfortable every month, and always uneasy at the thought that some leakage in your pad might cause spots to appear on your clothes. Anion Sanitary Napkins can keep you dry, feeling very comfortable and very safe even on the worst days of your period.

So let’s see how the Anion vs Kotex absorbency test went. We poured the same amount of water (50 ml) over an Anion and over a Kotex sanitary pad. We colored the water so that it is easier for you to see it.

Then we took two dry paper towels and pressed them against each pad to see how much liquid is coming back out. When pressing the hand against the Anion Love Moon Sanitary Pad, the paper towel remained completely dry:

Let’s see what the test results were for the Kotex sanitary pad:

As you can see from the pictures, the Kotex pad was so soaked, that the paper towel got wet when simply laying it on top of the pad, without even pressing it at all. And then, when pressing it with the hand, water came flushing out, as you can see.

I think the message is pretty clear. And, unlike some advertisments say, I would add: Be my guest and feel free to try this at home. I am sure you will not only be convinced, but also happy to have discovered some sanitary pads that can help you feel comfortable and safe: Anion Love Moon Sanitary Napkins.

Now that we have seen a comparison between how Anion Sanitary Napkins and Stayfree Sanitary Pads are packed, what their top layer looks like and what it is made of, let’s go one step further and put them to the absorbency test.

We have repeated the same procedure as in the tests presented in the previous posts: we poured an equal quantity of blue colored water over an Anion and over a Stayfree sanitary pad. Then we pressed a dry paper towel against each of them to see how much liquid is coming back out. Have a look at the pictures below to see what the results were:

You can see in the pictures above that, when pressing the hand against the Anion sanitary pad, even though the pressure was firm, the towel remained completely dry. Let’s see what happens with the towel pressed against the Stayfree pad.

As you can see, when lightly tapping the finger against the pad, the paper towel already got wet. And here is what happened after the hand was pressed against it:

In conclusion, Stayfree pads have a lower absorbency capacity than Anion Sanitary Napkins, even though they are better than Always sanitary pads as far as absorbency is concerned.

What is your first thought when looking at the following pictures?

Stayfree sanitary pad top layer

Anion  sanitary napkin top layer

The first one definitely looks nice. When seeing it, craftsmanship came to my mind. But is that really a quality? Have a closer look. Doesn’t it look like plastic? The top layer of a sanitary pad should most of all feel soft, absorb well and be healthy. Synthetic materials are obviously not healthy. They can cause rashes and irritations. Cotton won’t look as nice, but is definitely the most healthy and that is why one of the most important things to look for when choosing a sanitary pad is to make sure the top layer is made of cotton.

The second point is the absorbency. The plastic top layer will not allow the thicker parts of the discharge to get into the pad. It will just stay there, on the top of it, and the plastic will make it turn into something sticky and nasty.

Cotton is definitely not only much more healthy, but will also feel softer. Of course that also depends on the way it is manufactured. The top layer of the Anion sanitary napkins produced by Winalite is made of premium quality cotton, feels very soft, absorbs well and is very comfortable.

Probably the most important quality of a sanitary pad is ABSORBENCY. Actually that is why we use them -to keep us dry. How well do different sanitary pads manage to do that job?

Here is an easy test we suggest. You can do it yourself or, if you don’t want to spend your money on several different kinds of pads, you can just take a look at how our tests turned out.

After carrying out the tests I realized we gathered so much material that it cannot all go into one post, so I will just show you the results of one test today.

ANION LOVE MOON SANITARY NAPKINS versus ALWAYS

You can see how we filled two different glasses with some blue colored water (5o ml. each) and then poured the water over the pads.

Then we took two dry paper towels and pressed them against the pads.

In the above pictures you can see how wet the towel got after pressing it against the Always pad. Actually it did not only get wet when pressing the hand against it, but even at a simple light finger tap.

Let’s see how the Anion did:

And here you saw how the towel pressed against the Anion Love Moon Sanitary Napkin remained dry, though I did press it hard! See how the finger goes deep in, pressing hard against it (above picture). And then, I pressed my hand so hard that the print of my hand can be seen on the towel, and it still remained dry.

In conclusion, you can obviously see the difference in between Anion and Always pads. Anion Love Moon sanitary napkin has a much higher level of absorption and that is what you need if you want to stay dry and feel comfortable.

My next post will be about Anion versus a different famous brand pad, so keep following us for more interesting tests results.

Ruth Taylor

So we’ve seen how important the package of sanitary pads is. It has to be sealed to protect the pads from contamination. And today we’ll go one step forward. We are going to open the package, take a pad out and start to analyze it. We are actually going to open not only one package, but several of them from different brands, and we will compare them.

Watch out! Sealed or not, we’re coming in!

Sanitary pads are not as simple as it may seem at a first glance. They are made for the most complex beings in this universe, and consequently they are complex themselves. They are made of several different layers, each with different characteristics and for different purposes.

The top layer is very important because it is directly coming into contact with a most sensitive part of your body.

Have you tried to see how different brands of sanitary pads feel? Run your fingers over them. Some of them feel so rough that you don’t want to put them on. And it’s not only about how they feel. It’s what they are made of! Many are made of synthetic materials and contain chemicals, so no wonder many women complain about skin irritations and rashes after using some pads. And these synthetic materials pads do not only pose risks for our health, but they are also not good for the environment.

I tried some of the most popular brands on the market: Always, Stayfree, Kotex. All of them feel rough in comparison with Love Moon Anion Sanitary Napkins produced by Winalite. If I were to grade them on a scale 1 to 4, where 1 is the best, according to the quality of the top layer, I would give Stayfree a 4, Always a 3, Kotex a 2 and Anion a 1.

If you run your fingers over the surface of a Stayfree pad you will see it is very rough. I ripped the top layer off to be able to see better what it is made of, and to me it looks like plastic. The label doesn’t say what it is, and I assume that if it were some quality material, they would say it because it would be to their advantage. Always feels smoother, but it doesn’t say what it is made of either. Kotex feels softer and it also mentions on the label that the top layer is made of cotton, which is an important detail to be taken into account. Anion feels the best -very soft and the label also shows that the top layer is made of premium soft cotton.

Next thing we will look at will be the absorbency level. I did some tests and the results were quite intriguing. I will tell you more and also show you pictures in the next post.

Ruth Taylor