Shaping a period ready generation where the guesswork is over. Fun, bioscience, fizz, and heart all mixed in to build a device and app that’s yours. We’re building life foundations through a positive puberty experience and championing body literacy.
Why we created Teena.
That first period experience. You remember yours, right? We’re guessing it wasn’t great. Scary, sad, surprising...this can set a tone. A bad one can really knock your confidence, your self-esteem, your joy. That’s not right.
Every teen deserves to have a positive first period experience. To us, it’s essential. We owe it to them, to make it better than what we had.
So what could a first period look like? We see a first period experience that is anticipated, celebrated. Knowledge over fear. Confidence over concern. A first period experience that makes you feel love for your body. That makes you feel special. Just imagine!
A teen with this knowledge is a more confident teen. A teen that loves their body.
Vision
When you have the insight into the inner workings of your body - that’s where the magic happens and they can shape their own destiny. All from the initial glimpse of that very first period. Menarche. A word relatively unknown in the everyday and yet this is the awakening of a superpower.
Our conviction is that having a positive experience to start menstruation can positively influence the rest of our lives.
Meet the team
I literally had no idea when my period would start. I got it while sledding down a mountain next to our home. White snow, with a bunch of boy cousins on the sled trail. I had to pee, and I went for it right there next to the road. And there it was, so embarrassing! I hid it under the snow and ran back home. I grew up with my father, so the only other female in the house was a nanny during that time. I knew she had tampons so I snuck into her bathroom and got some. I pulled off the plastic and just shoved it in. I thought it was right that part of the tampon sticks out. I was too embarrassed to ask someone so I just went with it.
My first period experience is quite unspectacular. It was summer vacation, so I was at home, not at school. It came out of the blue (or I was simply out of touch with my body) and although I have an older sister, I remember kinda being shocked and ashamed to tell her and my mom. So sad! I probably never heard them talking much about it.
I felt like mine was coming for months and months. I went on a cross country trip with my father, and I was terrified that I was going to get it on that trip. My mom had given me a little fanny pack of period supplies to take with me just in case, and I took that pack into every public restroom we went to because I was so nervous about it. Luckily, I got it about 3 weeks later after we got home, and I was at our family beach house with all of my female cousins, my mom, lots of aunts, my grandmother, etc. I had so many other women telling me all about the first time they got their period and what it was like for them. I ended up feeling so lucky to have the support of so many women right away!
I first got my period when I was about 14. I cried and said "why me?" like it was something I could avoid! I felt utterly victimized by the whole thing. I had heavy periods and cramps. I would faint flat out while at school. I would spend a lot of time lying on the bed in the school nurse’s room. The nurse would just tell me to run around the school field to get rid of my cramps. It was an all-girls school, but there was nothing in the way of support.
