Terms of Use

1. Introduction

1.1. These terms of use (the “Terms”) are an agreement between you and Menstrual Portal. They apply to the whole of menstrualportal.com, including all its content, tools, features and services.

1.2. By accessing or using this website, you confirm that you have read these Terms and agree to be bound by them. If you do not agree, please do not use the site.

1.3. Our Privacy Policy forms part of these Terms and is incorporated into them by reference.

1.4. Depending on where you live, you may have rights under local law that cannot be signed away. Nothing in these Terms limits those rights. See section 17.

2. Who we are

2.1. In these Terms, “Menstrual Portal,” “we,” “us” and “our” mean Menstrual Portal, operated by a qualified team of doctors. “You” and “your” mean the person using the website.

2.2. You can reach us at help@menstrualportal.com. Our full contact details are in section 22.

3. What Menstrual Portal is, and what it isn’t

3.1. Menstrual Portal is a menstrual health educational platform. We publish health information written and reviewed by qualified doctors, and we answer questions from readers about menstrual and reproductive health.

3.2. We do not practice medicine here. Nothing on this website is a diagnosis, a treatment plan, a prescription, or a recommendation about your particular situation. We don’t examine you, we don’t take a full medical history, we don’t order tests, and we don’t see the things a clinician would see in a consultation room. What we do is help you understand what’s happening in your body, in plain language, and help you work out when and how to seek care from someone who can examine you.

3.3. Using this website does not create a doctor–patient relationship between you and Menstrual Portal, or between you and any doctor who writes for us or answers questions. No duty of care arises from your use of this site. The doctors on our team act as health educators here, not as your treating clinicians.

3.4. You should not delay seeking medical care, or disregard advice you have been given by a clinician, because of something you read on this website.

3.5. Our content covers anatomy, sexual and reproductive health, and related topics directly and clinically, because that is what makes health education useful. It is written for general education, is based on recognized clinical sources, and is reviewed with our younger readers in mind.

4. Emergencies

4.1. If you think you may be experiencing a medical emergency, stop and get help now. Do not send us a question and wait for a reply.

4.2. Call your local emergency number — 911 in the United States, 999 in the United Kingdom, 000 in Australia — or go to your nearest emergency department.

4.3. Symptoms that need urgent attention include, among others, heavy bleeding that soaks through a pad or tampon every hour, severe pelvic or abdominal pain, fainting, fever with pelvic pain, or bleeding during pregnancy. This list is not complete. If you are worried, treat it as urgent.

4.4. We are not an emergency service. We do not monitor submissions around the clock, and we cannot respond to urgent situations.

5. Who can use this website

5.1. Anyone can read Menstrual Portal. Our articles are general health information written by doctors, and they’re free for everyone to read. But to send us anything (a question, a newsletter signup, an account, or a review), you must be at least 13 years old.

5.2. If you are under 13, you’re welcome to read the site, but please don’t send us a question, your email address, or any other personal details, and please don’t create an account. If something is worrying you, please talk to a parent, a guardian, a school nurse, or a doctor.

5.3. If you are between 13 and 17, you may read the site and ask questions, but you should do so with the knowledge and involvement of a parent or guardian. By using the site, you confirm that a parent or guardian has agreed to these Terms on your behalf. We’d always encourage you to talk to a trusted adult about a health concern as well as asking us.

5.4. If you are using the site on behalf of someone else — a daughter, a sister, a friend — these Terms apply to you, and you confirm that you have their permission to share the information you send us.

5.5. If you believe someone is using the site in breach of this section, please tell us at help@menstrualportal.com and we will act on it.

6. Ask a doctor

6.1. Ask a doctor lets you send a health question and receive a written, doctor-reviewed answer by email.

6.2. What it is. An educational answer to a general question, written by a qualified doctor and reviewed before it is sent. It is intended to help you understand a topic and decide what to do next.

6.3. What it isn’t. It is not a consultation, an assessment, a diagnosis, a second opinion, or a treatment recommendation. Our doctors answer on the basis of a short written question and nothing else. They cannot examine you, and they will not tell you what is wrong with you or what medicine to take.

6.4. Response times are a target, not a promise. We aim to reply within the timeframe shown on the submission page, but we cannot guarantee it, and we cannot guarantee a reply at all.

6.5. We may decline to answer. We will not answer questions that ask for a diagnosis, ask what medication to take or at what dose, relate to an emergency, concern a situation that clearly requires in-person examination, or fall outside the areas our doctors cover. We may also decline questions that are abusive, deliberately misleading, or submitted in bulk. If we decline, we will normally tell you why and point you toward more appropriate help.

6.6. Delivery. Answers are sent by email. We are not responsible if an answer doesn’t reach you because of an incorrect address, a full mailbox, or a spam filter.

6.7. Safety. If something you send us suggests that you or another person — particularly a child — may be at risk of serious harm, we may take steps we consider appropriate in response, including contacting relevant services. We will not stay silent to preserve confidentiality where someone’s safety is at stake.

7. What we may do with the questions you send us

7.1. This section matters, so it’s written plainly.

7.2. When you submit a question, you may check a box giving us permission to publish it. That box is optional. You can ask a question without agreeing to publication, and we will still answer you.

7.3. If you give that permission, you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable and sublicensable license to publish, reproduce, edit, translate and distribute your question and our answer, in any media, as part of our published library, and to keep doing so after your permission is withdrawn or your account is closed.

7.4. Before anything is published, we remove your name, your email address, and details that could identify you. We take that process seriously and follow a documented review before publication. But no anonymization process is perfect, and we cannot guarantee that a determined person could never connect a published question to you. Please bear that in mind, and avoid including identifying details in the question itself.

7.5. We may also edit questions for clarity, length, grammar and readability, and combine them with related questions on a single page. We are not obligated to publish anything, and we may remove published material at any time.

7.6. Questions from people under 18 are never published.

7.7. If you did not give that permission, your question is used only to answer you, and is handled as described in our Privacy Policy.

8. Stories, reviews, comments and feedback

8.1. We invite readers to share their experiences, leave reviews, and send us feedback and suggestions.

8.2. By submitting any of this, you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable and sublicensable license to use, reproduce, edit, publish, distribute and display it, in any media, with or without attribution. You keep ownership of what you submit. This license lets us use it, it doesn’t take it from you.

8.3. When you submit a story, you choose how you are credited: Full name, first name only, a pseudonym, or fully anonymous. We honor that choice.

8.4. You confirm that anything you submit is your own, is truthful, does not contain another person’s private health information without their permission, and does not infringe anyone’s rights.

8.5. Personal experiences shared on this site are exactly that. They are one person’s experience, not medical advice, and not a guide to what will happen to you. Other readers are not medical professionals, and what helped one woman may not help, or may harm, another.

8.6. We moderate submissions and may edit, decline or remove anything at our discretion.

9. Tools

9.1. Menstrual Portal offers self-assessment and tracking tools, including the Menstrual Hygiene Evaluation tool and cycle tracking features.

9.2. These tools are educational. They do not diagnose, screen for, or rule out any condition. Their outputs are general prompts for reflection and for conversations with your doctor, not clinical findings.

9.3. Do not rely on any tool on this site for contraception, for conception, or for any medical decision. Cycle estimates are not a birth control method.

9.4. Where a tool stores information you enter, how it does so is described in our Privacy Policy.

10. Your account

10.1. Some features require an account. We sign you in using a link sent to your email address rather than a password.

10.2. Keep access to that email address secure. Anyone who can read your email can open your account. You are responsible for what happens under your account, and you should tell us promptly if you think someone else has access to it.

10.3. Accounts are personal. Don’t share yours, and don’t create one using someone else’s details.

10.4. We may suspend or close an account that is used in breach of these Terms.

11. Acceptable use

11.1. When using Menstrual Portal, you agree not to:

• Submit false information, or impersonate another person
• Submit another person’s health information without their permission
• Submit questions or content on behalf of a child under 13
• Use automated tools to submit questions, scrape content, or extract data from the site
• Copy, republish or redistribute our content beyond ordinary personal use or brief quotation with a link back
• Use our content to train or fine-tune machine learning models, or to build a competing service
• Attempt to access parts of the site you’re not authorized to reach, or interfere with its operation
• Abuse, threaten or harass our doctors, staff or other users
• Use the site for anything unlawful

11.2. Breaching this section ends your permission to use the site immediately.

11.3. We are not obligated to monitor how the site is used, but we may do so to keep it running properly, to check compliance with these Terms, and to meet our legal obligations. Where use of the site appears unlawful, we may report it to the relevant authorities and cooperate with them.

12. Our content and brand

12.1. The content on this website — articles, answers, images, graphics, video, code, design, the Menstrual Portal name and logo — belongs to us or to our licensors, and is protected by copyright and trademark law. Content submitted by users is covered by sections 7 and 8 and remains theirs.

12.2. You may read, print and share our content for your own personal, non-commercial use, and quote briefly from it with clear credit and a link. Anything beyond that needs our written permission. Write to editor@menstrualportal.com.

12.3. You may not link to this site in a way that suggests an association with, or endorsement by, us where none exists.

13. Third-party links and affiliate relationships

13.1. We link to other websites, including health services, charities, research, and products. We don’t control those sites and we’re not responsible for their content, their accuracy, or how they handle your data. A link is not an endorsement, and their terms and privacy policies apply once you leave us.

13.2. Some of our links are affiliate links, which means we may earn a commission if you buy something after clicking through, at no extra cost to you. This never changes what our doctors recommend or how our content is written. Our editorial process is independent of any commercial relationship, and where an affiliate relationship exists on a page, we say so.

14. Disclaimer of warranties

14.1. The website and everything on it are provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement.

14.2. We work hard to make our content accurate and current. Every article is written and reviewed by qualified doctors and referenced to recognized clinical sources. But medical understanding changes, guidance differs between countries, and no general information can account for your individual circumstances. We do not warrant that the content is complete, current, accurate, or suitable for your situation.

14.3. We do not warrant that the website will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, or that any answer, tool output or communication will be delivered.

14.4. We operate this website from outside the United States and make no representation that it is appropriate or available for use in every location.

14.5. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so parts of this section may not apply to you. Nothing here limits a warranty or right that cannot lawfully be excluded (see section 17).

15. Limitation of liability

15.1. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Menstrual Portal, its operators, doctors, contributors and staff will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, data, goodwill or opportunity, arising out of your use of this website or your reliance on anything published on it.

15.2. To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total liability to you for all claims arising out of or relating to the website or these Terms will not exceed one hundred US dollars (US$100).

15.3. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.

15.4. Where any provision of these Terms would exclude or limit our liability further than the law allows, that provision applies only to the maximum extent the law does allow.

16. Indemnity

16.1. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Menstrual Portal, its operators, doctors, contributors and staff against any claims, losses, liabilities and reasonable legal costs arising from your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the website, or content you submit to us.

17. Your consumer rights

17.1. If you live in the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, or another jurisdiction with mandatory consumer protection law, you have rights that these Terms cannot take away.

17.2. Nothing in sections 14, 15 or 20 removes or limits those rights, and where a provision of these Terms conflicts with a right you hold under the mandatory law of your home country, that right prevails.

17.3. Australian users: Our services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law, and nothing here is intended to exclude them.

18. Copyright complaints

18.1. If you believe material on this website infringes your copyright, send a written notice to editor@menstrualportal.com including:

• Your name, address, telephone number and email address
• Identification of the work you say has been infringed, with a copy or link to an authorized version where possible
• The URL of the material on our site
• A statement that you believe in good faith that the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law
• A statement, made under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on their behalf
• Your physical or electronic signature

18.2. We investigate every notice we receive and remove infringing material promptly. We also maintain a policy of terminating, in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of repeat infringers.

19. Suspension, termination and changes

19.1. We may suspend or end your access to the website, without notice, if you breach these Terms or if we reasonably believe your use puts other users, our staff, or the site at risk.

19.2. When access ends, your right to use the site ends with it. The sections that by their nature should survive — licenses you have granted (7 and 8), disclaimers (14), limitation of liability (15), indemnity (16) and governing law (20) — continue to apply.

19.3. We may change, suspend or discontinue any part of the website at any time, and we may set limits on how it can be used. Using the site doesn’t entitle you to its continued availability.

19.4. We may also update these Terms. When we make a material change, we will update the date at the top of this page and, where the change significantly affects your rights, take reasonable steps to bring it to your attention. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the updated Terms. If you don’t accept them, please stop using the site, and do get in touch first if you have questions about what changed.

19.5. If we publish these Terms in another language, the English version is the binding one.

20. Governing law and disputes

20.1. These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, without regard to its conflict of law rules.

20.2. Before starting formal proceedings, please contact us at help@menstrualportal.com and give us 30 days to resolve the matter. Most problems can be resolved this way, and we would genuinely rather fix something than argue about it. Please tell us who you are, how to reach you, what the problem is, and what you’d like us to do about it.

20.3. If we can’t resolve it, any dispute will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Delaware, and you and we both consent to the jurisdiction of those courts, subject always to section 17, and to any right you have to bring proceedings in the courts of your own country where the law of that country gives you that right.

20.4. If you are a resident of the United Kingdom, the European Union, Switzerland, Norway or Iceland, the governing law and the courts will be those of your usual place of residence.

21. General

21.1. If any part of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, that part is applied to the maximum extent permissible and the rest continues to apply.

21.2. If we don’t enforce a provision right away, that isn’t a waiver of our right to enforce it later.

21.3. These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding your use of this website.

21.4. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms. We may transfer ours to a successor or affiliated entity, including on a reorganization of our business.

22. Contact, complaints and conduct

22.1. Questions about these Terms, or about anything on the site: help@menstrualportal.com

22.2. Copyright, permissions, and reporting outdated content: editor@menstrualportal.com

22.3. A word about how we talk to each other. When you contact us, you can expect our team to be polite, respectful and straight with you. We ask the same in return. Our doctors and staff read difficult, personal messages every day and they do it with care. If someone is abusive or threatening toward them, we may limit contact to email or decline to correspond further, and where behavior suggests a risk to our team we will treat it accordingly.

22.4. California residents. Under California Civil Code § 1789.3, you may report complaints to the Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the California Department of Consumer Affairs, in writing at 1625 North Market Blvd., Suite N 112, Sacramento, CA 95834, or by telephone at (800) 952-5210.