[Female adolescence: adaptation to bodily functions].

Basic knowledge about ones own body is worthwhile for the understanding of advisable attitudes in personal hygienics. Teaching of hygienic means for the controlling of bodily functions should go hand in hand with the education in human biology. Nevertheless, the doctor who offers care for adolescent girls will always be confronted with certain typical questions about discharge and menstruation, not much later as well about reproductive function or contraception. For menstrual hygienics tampons have advantages over pads, as long as their use is properly demonstrated. The toxic-shock syndrome has hardly ever existed in association with the use of tampons.