According to a survey, the top menstrual hygiene concerns for women during their periods are disturbed sleep, menstrual cramps and dirty public toilets.

Out of the total number of women surveyed, more than half 53.2 per cent, said they do not have sound sleep during the first two days of their periods. The survey revealed that 67.5 per cent of women are still worried about the risk of spotting during periods when they are asleep at night.

The survey has said 57.3 per cent of women experienced moderate to severe menstrual cramps, while 37.2 per cent had mild or occasional menstrual pain. A whopping 62.2 per cent of women admitted that they have either never or only rarely changed a sanitary pad at a public place such as a toilet at an office, mall or cinema hall.

However, 74.6 per cent of women get uncomfortable if they need to change their sanitary pads at a public toilet. As much as 88.3 per cent of women believe that dirty toilets can be a source of persistent urinary tract infection, according to the survey.

The menstrual hygiene survey received participation from nearly 6,000 menstruating women aged between 18 to 35 years from more than 35 cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Patna, Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Bhopal, Indore, Guwahati, Jaipur, Amritsar, Ludhiana and Kolkata.

The survey also underlined some facts about the average onset age and duration of periods. While most of the women respondents (79.3 per cent) said they were 12 years or more when they got their first period, 63.1 per cent of women said they knew girls who have just started their periods, of which as many as 37.5 per cent of girls were aged 11 years or less.

As many as 22.8 per cent of women had periods lasting 3 days or less, while 1.8 per cent of women had periods lasting more than eight days each month. The survey was conducted by a feminine hygiene brand.