In this op-ed, Jane Hartman Adamé explains why it's important to design menstrual products for disabled people, too.

Menstrual cups are awesome. They are better for the environment, save you money over time, and can be used for up to 12 hours continuously. However, they're not for everyone. And I mean that — they're not made for everyone.

Designing for women, particularly when the product is related to our sexual health, is challenging enough. Most inventors are men, and they tend to make things in a way that makes sense to them. How does that make sense? Now add in disability.

Disabled women have periods, too. And we deserve access to easy-to-use and well-made products that allow us to enjoy these amazing benefits. That's why I've been working hard to make something that works for as many people as possible.

I have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective-tissue disorder that is characterized by joint instability. This means that when I do something like change out my menstrual cup, I can dislocate a finger, a shoulder, a hip, or something in my back. Not just can — I have done all of the above! I stopped using cups for a while, and it really bummed me out. I didn’t want to send more tampons and pads into the landfill, but I had to prioritize my own body over the planet. That is not a fun choice to make.

My friend, who is a medical-device inventor, and I designed a menstrual cup called the Keela Cup, which we believe is much easier to use. With many traditional menstrual cups, tugging on the stem of the cup creates a suctioning seal in your body, which can pull your cervix (ouch!). So to remove it, you have to reach inside to push in the wall of the cup to break the seal. As you can imagine, this can be a tricky maneuver for a lot of folks, myself included.

We figured out that we could connect the stem to the top of the cup by having it pass through a seal at the bottom. This meant that pulling on the stem would break the seal at the top by folding it in, so now you could remove the cup as easily as a tampon.

This is a game-changer for me. With my chronic pelvic inflammation (my pelvis is the most troublesome part of my body with my SI joints and hips constantly slipping out of place), I am almost always spotting. Now, with how easy it is to use my Keela Cup, I wear it whenever I’m spotting even just a little bit. It’s so easy to take out my cup that I don’t feel it's a chore for me anymore, and I don’t have to worry about it all day or night.

We’ve just launched on Kickstarter, and we have a lot of people sharing our product. I can’t express how gratifying it is to see other people ecstatic about something I’ve made, including people who have been too scared to try cups. Even still, there are some folks who just don’t get it.

One commenter on Facebook responded, "I think it's solving a problem that doesn't exist." Tell that to all of the people who are excited that they will actually be able to use this! It’s this ableist thinking (if the problem doesn’t apply to me, it must not exist) that has limited development in these fields for so long. If we allow the voices of our most challenged users to be heard, solving a huge problem for some can mean solving an inconvenience for everyone else. Inevitably, inclusive design benefits all of us. When we factor in the people at the extreme ends of use, we end up making something that is easier for the folks in the middle as well.


For me, Keela has been a project of empowerment. Rather than being embarrassed or quietly discouraged by the difficulty I had using other cups, I looked at the problem head-on and carved out a solution. When I first got my EDS diagnosis, I couldn’t imagine what I could do for work with this body. I thought I was broken, and many days I still feel this way, but I now know I can use my disadvantages to make a positive impact.

Related: Everything You Never Knew You Should Know About Menstrual Cups