Is it true that mainstream tampon brands are contaminated?

Tampon manufacturing standards

In Europe, tampons aren’t classed as medical devices, so manufacturers aren’t legally required to sanitise their tampons or produce them in sterile environments.

Our research:

Since tampons come into contact with one of the most absorbent (and important!) parts of the body, we think manufacturing standards should be much higher. We know from our research that whatever you insert in the vagina can disrupt your vaginal microbiome; if the wrong bacteria is introduced, infections like BV, thrush or (very rarely) TSS can occur.

We decided to carry out our own research on un-sanitised tampons to see if they were contaminated with potentially harmful bacteria. We ran microbial analysis on several mainstream tampon brands and found that they were contaminated with Staphylococcus aureus (the bacteria responsible for BV), candida albans (the yeast that causes thrush) and E.coli (the bacteria that causes TSS).

There are also a number of other studies that examine bacterial contamination in tampons:

• Examining the Impact of Tampon Use on the Vaginal Microbiota

• A study on the microbial quality of sealed products for feminine hygiene

• Tampons, sterile cotton, sanitary pads contaminated with glyphosate - study

What does this mean for people who use tampons?

Although the risk of contracting TSS through tampon use is very low (less than one in a million), we think it’s manufacturers’ duty to eliminate all risk. In addition to the studies we have shared above, there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that tampon use can cause recurrent thrush and BV. That’s why we independently batch-test our tampons for microbial contamination, and produce them in a pharma-grade cleanroom, where we sanitise them with gamma rays.

Without more stringent standards in place, tampon use could pose a threat to the vaginal and overall health of people who menstruate. You may have heard of cases where tampons have been recalled by manufacturers over bacterial contamination, but it’s still an issue that goes largely unmentioned.

While it’s never our intention to scaremonger, we feel that the lack of sanitisation regulations in the tampon industry are symptomatic of a wider problem: the gender gap in medical research and product innovation. Our mission at Daye is to bridge this gap and raise standards in female healthcare.

We seek to do this through our own products, but also by encouraging more open channels of communication in the tampon industry—we’d love to see other brands making positive changes!