 wish you all a very happy women's day. I am Dr. Rushali Zadav, Consultant and Curvedist at Manipal Hospital, Kharadi, Pune. Today I am going to speak about Adolescence. Adolescence is an age from the year of 10 to 19 years where there is a transition from childhood to adulthood. There are many physical and mental changes that happen in adolescence. It is very important for the parents to know what adolescence has. If there are a number of changes, hormonal changes in the body, especially for girls that happen at which the parents need to know. First of all, it's like menstruation. Menstruation, menarche or start of the period or the first period. It is accompanied with various other bodily changes like development of secondary sexual characters, development of breast, pubic and axillary hair. The girl needs to be educated about menstruation. She needs to be given sex education. She needs to be told about hygiene. So these are the few points which I am going to discuss about menstruation or menstrual hygiene or care to be taken during menstruation. First of all, menstruation age was 13 before now the girls are getting periods or getting menarche at the age of 10. So this is the adolescence ranging from 10 to 16 years of age where the girl is expected to get her first period. The first period might be a little painful, maybe ranging from 5 to 7 days of flow, but this is normal. The first few cycles are a little irregular that means she might skip a month or two. That is fine. The girl or the patient needs to be told that she needs to take good care of her health, maintain hygiene and have a good diet. The parent needs to take care of her diet. She needs to have a good carbohydrate intake of 2500 to 3000 kilocalories per day, a good protein intake and she should maintain her physical activity and not restrict it during periods. Certain girls will have a little amount of pain in the lower abdomen, heaviness of the breast, but this is okay. If the symptoms are severe then the girl can be given mild painkillers but reassurance helps a lot. The parent needs to come to the child that this is a normal change which is happening in the body and that she will be fine and this is going to happen every month. The period or the menstruation prepares the girl for conception or prepares the uterus for conception. Here the body undergoes a lot of changes. There are hormonal changes in the body. Maybe this is reflected in the girls or the child's behavior. The parent needs to understand. Sometimes this child might be irritable because of the symptoms which she has. There might be mood swings. There might be certain things that the parent sees that this is abnormal or different but the child needs support and reassurance. This will be absolutely fine in a few cycles when the child gets used to the monthly cycles. The mood changes are there in every girl but these need to be addressed by the parent in such a way that the girl feels that this is a normal part of the regular body function. She needs to understand that the body is showing a normal section or reproductive system by her menstruation which is happening every month. So the menstrual cycle and the key disorders of menstruation I will just discuss in short. The key disorders could be just irregularity or painful cycles and the cycles could be a little delayed that is maybe a 45 day or a 50 day cycle or sometimes a 60 day or the cycle prolongs or the flow prolongs for 7 days or more but if the child is not having a very heavy flow or she is able to bear it then the parent does need to just reassure her and tell her about hygiene and she needs to understand that she needs to take a good diet during menstruation. Now during periods or during menses she can either use disposable pads or nowadays the cloth reusable pads are also available. She needs to keep a candy or a chocolate in her pouch so that whenever she feels a little lower energy she can have it. She is told about changing the pads every 4 to 6 hours and to maintain her regular activity at school and there is no need to restrict activity or do anything different during the cycle. Plus clipping of the pubic hair or the genital hair or cleaning the hair is not required for hygiene at the most if required then the hair can be just clipped with scissors which is more than enough for hygiene purposes. Diet I have already spoken about hygiene exercise I have already spoken about so these are certain changes in the girl's body that happen and sometimes in adolescence there are things like mental health issues which happen in children which might be because of peer pressure or due to the environment in which they are staying like behavioural disorder sometimes addiction like smoking alcohol all these problems happen in adolescence. So it is important for the parent to be there with a child during 10 to 19 years of age and try to be their friend so that their adolescence is a smooth process and they do not land up having myths about adolescence or having myths about sexual education or about their body. The girl also needs to be educated about the changes that are going to happen in the body and they need to know their private parts they need to know when to say no they need to know about good touch and bad touch this is all that the parent needs to educate the child regarding the changes that occur during adolescence. So this was in short about adolescence and the age is like now 10 to 19 years and I hope the parents will be able to help their child in this journey of transition from childhood to adult.