If you’ve ever held your breath and silently panicked when you felt what seemed like a huge surge of blood gushing out on a heavy flow day, you might wonder how your menstruation compares to “normal.” Here’s an answer:
The average woman loses eight to 14 teaspoons of blood over the span of her period, or roughly 2 1/2 teaspoons a day. Two to four regular absorbency tampons or two to three super absorbency tampons can catch this.
This is only an average, so you’ll need to observe what your own body tends to do over time. A light flow day for you could be a heavy one for someone else or the other way around.
IMPORTANT: If your flow ever changes dramatically from normal (either heavier or lighter), see a doctor. This change, along with symptoms of lightheadedness, dizziness, lethargy, or excruciating cramps with severe blood loss, could signal something concerning like a hormone imbalance, fibroids, cysts, or something harder to pinpoint, like endometriosis.
That said, such symptoms could also be nothing to worry about. Your body goes through all sorts of hormonal rises and dips in life. How much menstrual blood you lose can change around menopause, after a pregnancy, or simply as a part of getting older. Don’t try to Google and guess, though - get it checked out by a doctor.