University researchers will lobby Pharmac for sanitary products and bins in primary schools and push for younger children to be educated about periods, as new data reveals one in 16 girls begins menstruating before year 7.
For the first time New Zealand has collected nationwide data on the age girls first get their periods, released from the 2014 and 2015 New Zealand Health Survey from the Ministry of Health.
The survey asked women aged from 25 to 34 in 2015 the age when their periods first began.
The average age was 13.2 years old, but findings suggested nearly 50% of girls get their period before they start high school in intermediate years 7 or 8, and about 6.3% get their periods in year 6 or below, when they are 10 or younger.
Department of Public Health researcher Dr Lucy Telfar-Barnard analysed the data and said about 0.5% of women surveyed got their periods when they were 8 years old or younger.
University of Otago Wellington Department of Public Health sociologist Dr Sarah Donovan said this was the first set of formal data available about what age New Zealand girls got their periods.
The results showed the need for a formal directive from the ministry on what schools should provide.
At the moment, sanitary products were usually available from school offices, and some teachers were also ''going out of pocket'' in a bid to help.
''I think a lot of schools wouldn't even know that they need [sanitary products].''
An informal survey showed a lot of primary schools did not have sanitary bins.
Last year, Dr Donovan spoke to a family who said their daughter's school had not provided sanitary bins despite being asked.
Schools ''can't necessarily rely'' on parents to teach their daughters about periods, because for some families there was still a stigma around them due to their link to reproduction.
She hoped to gain funding to continue her research, but to date she had been gathering information on menstruation ''on the side'' because it interested her.
If her application to Pharmac was unsuccessful, she was planning to go directly to the Government, and speak to it about what the Scottish Government was doing; providing free sanitary products in schools and universities.
