Dot Girl First Period Products is pleased to announce the addition of CC Girl Beginner Bras to our product line. The seamless pull-over day bras are made of smooth, seamless micofiber with lightly lined, ultra-soft stretchy cups. Adjustable back straps can be converted to a racer back. A fantastic everyday pullover bra that is just right for her! Two colors and three sizes available.

Buy a bra here.

Somebody once said that "Friends are like bras - close to your heart and there for support." This may seem like an exaggeration, but bras truly keep a woman healthy and active. That is, if they fit right, of course.

Finding the right bra can be a monumental task for women of all ages but more so for young girls growing up. For mothers and daughters all over the world, the quest for that first training bra can be a challenging experience.

Historically, corsets and camisoles were the undergarments of choice for women. When bras began to dominate the market, they came to have some social significance and are now one of the primary signs that a young girl has started becoming a woman. Previously this rite of passage was symbolized by a plain, white cotton camisole; now young girls can choose from bras of all imaginable styles and colors.

Shopping for that first training bra should be an intimate and memorable experience. One of the best ways to prepare is for mother and daughter to talk. It's an awkward time in a young girl's life, and a mother's guidance is needed to get through the many physical changes of growing up.

For some girls it may be too early to take measurements, but even if your daughter is a late bloomer, it might be best for you to still buy her first bra so she doesn't feel unattractive or left out from her friends.

If a perfectly fitted bra assists a woman to be healthy, then conversely, an ill-fitting bra can cause problems such as back pain, headaches, and just plain discomfort. So as early as the first bra, a girl should know what red flags to look out for when buying one. Straps digging into or falling off the shoulders are standard signs of a bad fit; bras that ride up over the breasts during activity or that can't seem to stay in place are other possible sore points that can be caused by ill-fitting bras.

Ever wonder about what to do with those messy pads? Dot Girl First Period Products has the answer for you. Scensibles are single-use biodegradable plastic bags with a pleasant fresh scent for easy, discreet disposal of sanitary pads, tampons, and panty liners. The bags have an easy tie handle closure with five included in each pack. Slip them into The Dot Girl's First Period Kit for easy clean disposal at home or away.

Buy Sensibles here.

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For middle-school kids, the universe begins and ends with their cellphones.

They wake up to ringtones of their favorite Lil Wayne songs, get dressed while receiving texts from their moms reminding them to not forget their homework. On the bus, they hold their phones at arm's length to snap yet another self-portrait, baby fat unmistakable under the mascara, and to shoot a picture of their cousin fighting with that kid Dustin from down the street.

In the lunchroom, they wait until no adult's looking, then check their inbox with thumbs glowing orange from Flamin' Hot Cheetos dust. They're not supposed to use their phones at school, but they do. They text all day every day, driving their teachers over the edge. Late at night, they're still texting under the covers, flirting and gossiping, pushing away boredom and loneliness and sleep.

The other day, a few girls at John Hopkins Middle School flipped open their phones and allowed us to scroll through their life stories, as of five minutes ago.

Marissa Granados

Eighth grade, 14 years old. Calls herself "the wild child."

Marissa's phone is fire-engine red. Its faceplate glowers with a photo of her boyfriend, Giovanni, wearing boxing gloves. Other pictures of Gio, trying to look tough and clowning with his friends in the halls, dominate the phone's photo library. Most of these shots he took himself.

"Let's just say he likes the camera a lot," says Marissa.

Inside her phone she also keeps video snippets of Gio rapping, of her math teacher making seal noises in front of the class, of her and her friends pretending to kidnap her cat, Princess.

Marissa's speed-dials are her mom, her sister and her grandmother, who lives in Arizona. Sometimes, her grandmother messages Marissa to see if she's having a good day.

"My grandma texts me," says Marissa. "I taught her the little abbreviations for everything."

Not long ago, her grandmother sent her one of those abbreviations:

ily

Marissa wrote back:

ily2

Lacey Parmentier

Eighth grade, 13 years old. Plays volleyball after school. Recently traumatized when she left her cellphone in one of the bathrooms at John Hopkins. When she came back a few minutes later, Lacey found another girl chatting on it inside a stall. When Lacey knocked on the stall's door, the other girl broke the phone.

"She snapped it in half!" says Lacey.

Now the school's resource officer is involved, and maybe lawyers and other unpleasantries. In the meantime, Lacey's parents bought her a shining new turquoise phone, which is already filling up with text messages.

"I just got about 60 this morning," says Lacey.

Half of the texts, it seems, are from a guy friend of hers. This boy has just announced that he likes a certain girl but is a little cagey on her identity. He texts Lacey four names of who it might be and asks her to figure out which is right.

aubri

brooke

you

kristen

Lacey hopes it's not her. She doesn't want her friendship with this boy to get messed up. She texts him her official guess, Aubri, and waits to hear back.

Days go by. No answer from the boy.

Breanna Rogers-Burrows

Seventh grade, 12 years old. Prefers to go by Brezzy, pronounced "Breezy." Wants to become a crime-scene analyst, just like on "CSI." First needs to clear up a small problem involving multiple confiscations of her cellphone. She keeps texting in class; her teachers keep removing the phone from her hands.

"I've had it taken away 125 times this year," says Brezzy.

"Are you serious?" another girl asks. "Were you counting?"

"Yeah."

Her photo gallery shines with a galaxy of self-portraits: Brezzy sitting with her stuffed Elmo, Brezzy in a hoodie making waif eyes, Brezzy flashing a peace sign and sticking out her tongue.

Mostly, though, her phone overflows with texts to and from her many best friends and one ex-best friend (Brezzy says she's still not sure what went wrong between them) and another girl who, according to Brezzy, has dated eight boys in the past five days, and a boy who's been rejected by practically every girl in the school, and of course Brezzy's mother and her father and her older sister, identified in the phone logs as Bb due to the fact that she was shot in the hand by a BB gun, not to mention the girl whose phone signature is I luv Chase Soooooo Much.

Reading through the inbox and outbox of Brezzy's texts is like skimming the rough outline of an epic novel.

Hey everyone i got dumped 2day

i almost killed myself over her. i was used ...

chasity said something like why u looken at my boobs ...

she lied to me!!!

The sweetest messages, without a doubt, are those between Brezzy and this eighth-grader, who calls himself Joshua and The Old Testimate. The two of them have a routine. Every day, Brezzy tells him she's ugly. Every day, Joshua tells her otherwise.

No ur not. Believe me

Sabrina Hamilton

Seventh grade, 13 years old. Wants to work with animals when she grows up. Decorates the outside of her silver phone with tiny, sparkly rhinestones. Prefers texting to calling because a) it's cheaper, and b) she thinks it's "more personal."

Sabrina texts nonstop, mostly with other girls and certainly not with anyone resembling a boyfriend. She has her whole life to worry about romance, she says. No need to bother with that now.

Many of her texts are from her mother, who uses the wonders of technology to shower her daughter with motherly reminders.

Pay attention

I know do u have something overdue

After school, when her mother's still at work, she and Sabrina keep up a back-and-forth of texts, just so her mom can know exactly where she is.

i have 2 go 2 library, writes Sabrina.

ok be safe, answers her mom.

The phone is her mom's surrogate. As long as Sabrina's carrying it, she's never alone.

Maggie O'Connor minces garlic for a Mexican lasagna while across the kitchen Melissa Thornton chops basil for a turkey wrap.

These aren't professional chefs. They're 10- and 11-year-old girls getting a lesson in cooking and healthy eating. They're also learning how to have a positive image of their bodies.

"I think you need to balance things," said Thornton, a fourth-grader from Atlanta, Georgia.

Not only is her mother peeking over Melissa's shoulder as she works, but so is clinical psychologist Dina Zeckhausen, founder of the Eating Disorders Information Network.

She gathered eight moms and their daughters on a recent Sunday afternoon at The Cook's Warehouse in Atlanta.

Zeckhausen's goal is to help the mothers be effective role models, especially when it comes to eating.

"These are just ordinary moms," Zeckhausen said. "A lot of ordinary moms these days have struggled with their own body image. They want to raise healthy daughters. They don't want to pass their own anxieties down to their girls."

The National Eating Disorders Association notes there has been unprecedented growth of eating disorders in the past two decades.

The group estimates up to 10 million Americans suffer from the condition. Ninety percent of those who battle anorexia and bulimia are female.

Zeckhausen urged the moms gathered in the kitchen to eliminate what she called "negative body talk."

"It's important that you don't put yourself down in front of your daughter," explained Zeckhausen. "She has an adult woman's body in her future and she's looking to you in terms of how to feel about that body. She's taking notes whether you know it or not."

Vicki Bratton knows that firsthand. She attended the class with her 8-year-old. "I realized so many things come out of my mouth that I don't expect. Everything we say, their ears are hearing and they are processing it."

Bratton said she was surprised she needed to start worrying about her daughter being at risk for eating disorders at such a young age.

"I hear stories of first-graders who are already afraid of eating cookies because they think they are bad," Zeckhausen said. "I heard of a 5-year-old who wouldn't put on her winter coat because she was afraid it made her look fat."

Zeckhausen put part of the blame on the media and pop culture. "Our daughters are comparing their bodies on the outside to what the girls look like on the Disney Channel and in the magazines. We want to help our daughters base their body image more on what their bodies do for them and how they feel, rather than how they look."

For more information visit the National Eating Disorders Association.

Girls and young women who exercise regularly between the ages of 12 and 35 can substantially cut their risk of developing breast cancer, according to a major new study.

Remaining physically active until the age of 35 can reduce the chances of developing the disease before menopause by up to 23 per cent, researchers found. The study, conducted by researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Harvard University in Boston, analysed 65,000 women.

The study looked at registered nurses aged between 24 and 42, who were questioned about their physical activities from the age of 12. After six years of the study, 550 women had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Researchers found the disease was more prominent among the less active than among the physically fit. The most active women were exercising at a rate equivalent to running for 3.25 hours a week or walking for 13 hours, the study found.

Lead researcher Dr. Graham Colditz said in a press release, "We don't have a lot of prevention strategies for premenopausal breast cancer, but our findings clearly show that physical activity during adolescence and young adulthood can pay off in the long run by reducing a woman's risk of early breast cancer."

Colditz added that the findings are just "one more reason to encourage young girls and women to exercise regularly."

The findings were published Tuesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The research was funded by grants from the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society.

Introducing our children to change and new experiences is a natural function of parenting. It's the 'how' and 'when' that can trip us up.

At age 8, my daughter came home from baseball practice and asked, "How long does it take to bleed to death?" She said her friend Ruthie began bleeding down her legs on second base.

I stammered out reassurance that Ruthie would be all right, that the bleeding was normal for growing-up girls, and that Ruthie might stay home from practice for a day.

"You mean she's NOT dying?"

"Right. Her body is growing up, and will bleed a little bit every month now. But her mom will show her how to keep clean. It can be messy, but it's not scary."

"YUCK! I'm NEVER going to do that," she said, pounding her fist into her baseball mitt. "Am I?"

Prepare Yourself

Preparing our daughters for transition to womanhood means preparing ourselves by learning basic information.

Female puberty marches along predictably in three stages: breast development, pubic hair growth and then menstruation.

Recent studies indicate that puberty begins earlier now in American girls than in previous decades, and takes longer to complete. The possible reasons under investigation include a connection to rising obesity rates and the presence of chemicals in food and the environment.

Although breast development is beginning earlier, the beginning of menses has remained fairly steady over the past three decades. The average age for beginning menses is about 12.5 years, according to a study published in 1997 in the journal Pediatrics. It can begin as early as age 8 or as late as age 16. A girl can expect her first period after she begins developing curves and pubic hair, experiences a growth spurt and weighs about 100 pounds.

Menstruation is the discharge of blood and tissue from the lining of the uterus each month for about five days. It signals a female's reproductive maturity. A typical menstrual cycle lasts 28 to 30 days, but can vary from 22 to 35 days.

A girl's first period is called "menarche" (men-ARK-ee). The first period is likely to be light and last up to seven days. Sometimes girls feel mild to severe abdominal cramps for as briefly as an hour or as long as the whole length of the period. Every girl is different! It may take a year for a girl's menstrual period to settle into a predictable pattern.

Prepare Your Daughter

Classes, books, and "first period kits" are available to help parents explain the facts of menarche at the level of detail that is appropriate to the age of their girls.

Health educators agree that the most important step is to establish trusting, two-way communication with your daughter. Several hospitals in the Puget Sound area offer workshops to help create a clear channel for dialogue.

One such workshop, "Growing up Female," is facilitated by Sara Rigel at Swedish Medical Center. The one-hour class welcomes girls ages 9 to 12 and the adults they love and trust to learn how to discuss the pre-teen's changes. "This class is not just for moms and daughters - sometimes we see four parents with one daughter or a girl brings an older sibling or aunt," says Rigel.

"Our primary mission is to promote communication in the family," she said. The class relays facts to alleviate fears of the unknown and to equip attendees with correct information about puberty and sexuality. "But foremost they leave with a model for developing communication skills and providing opportunities for questions."

"Our main messages are that this transition is normal, talking about it is normal, and talking about it in the family is normal," continues Rigel. She says the class affirms to the adults that other parents are dealing with the same issues and to the girls that all other girls go through the same changes. No one is alone.

'The overall objective is that everybody in the class should be able to identify two good times [of day] to talk to each other." One family figured out the time and place was in the car while they were doing errands or commuting.

The Seattle School District helps parents prepare their children via "FLASH," "Family Life and Sexual Health" curriculum. District Health Education Specialist Helen Walsh says the program begins in fifth grade classrooms with students learning about themselves and their relationships with others, then progresses into discussion about puberty.

As resources permit, the school district adds the home-life dimension to FLASH with an annual after-hours evening called "Family Night." Each fifth-grader brings a trusted adult to school. If a family member is not available, one of the school staff fills in with the student.

"This was designed to celebrate the changes that are happening in the students - the ways that puberty is affecting them physically, emotionally and socially. And it is to help develop ways for students to continue these conversations at home," says Walsh. "For many, this is their last year in an elementary school, and moving into middle school is part of their larger transition."

The 90-minute workshop splits into two simultaneous sessions - one for boy/adult pairs, and the other for girl/adult pairs. Translators fluent in seven languages are available to help where they are needed to facilitate discussion.

"The family knows that FLASH information is underway in the classroom, but a lot of times the families don't know when or how to start the conversation (about puberty) with their students," says Walsh. "Here they learn how to talk about these changes and stay in communication when things - life - seem confusing, exciting, overwhelming. Parents have a lot of feelings about their children growing up, too, and want to express that to their children. It's a two-way street."

Stock Up

At the top of your shopping list write down sanitary pads and tampons. At least show your daughter what tampons look like and how they work, even if you don't recommend that she use them. Buy a small calendar and show her how to record her periods.

Ask your pediatrician about analgesics to relieve the pain of menstrual cramps and headache. Buy a small heating pad or hot water bottle for your daughter's tummy.

Your daughter will feel more secure about menarche if she knows what to do when it happens.

· Stock up with the supplies she will need and show her how to use them. Be sure she knows where to find them. Consider ordering a "first period kit."

· Have a "rehearsal." Begin with washing hands, put a pad in place according to the printed instructions in the pad box, dispose of a used pad appropriately wrapped and end with washing hands.

· At a store or her school, show your daughter how to purchase a pad from a restroom machine.

· Talk through the "what ifs" and problem-solve together. What if her period starts at school? At summer camp? Who can she turn to for help?

· Speak from your own experience. It will help her to know you've been through this, too.

· Buy books about puberty and menstruation that are suited to her age and need for detail. You read them first!

· Plan how the two of you will celebrate The Big Day. Pedicures? A special dinner out? A box of yummy chocolates?

Local entrepreneurs Kathy Pickus and her sister, Teri Goodwin, created a tidy little gift pack for a girl's first period. The Dot Girl[tm] First Period Kit is a small, zippered case containing sample sanitary pads, tampons, hand wipes, a calendar, an informational booklet and a heating gel pad.

"We have more customers asking us why we don't include chocolate!" says Pickus, laughing. "The answer is that we couldn't fit anything more into the case." The kit is available only through the Dot Girl Web site, which features "first period stories" from girls. Pickus says that when she and her sister began promoting their product, women volunteered their menarche memories. This led the sisters to create a venue where girls can see that they are not alone and can match notes with others' experiences.

"Every girl and woman goes through it," said Pickus. "What's most surprising to us is that girls in this day and age are still surprised when it happens to them."

Tulalip resident Suzanne Pate has paid the rent for 20 years by writing for public and private sector health agencies, university publications and newspapers.

Lily's Story
I was at Disneyland and saw orange in my underpants. Thinking this was normal, I decided to do nothing. The next day I sat down in the living room and felt wet. I thought, well this is odd, it's probably discharge. I got up and went to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet and there it was, my period. Fortunately I had already gotten the period talk, and used a pad. I walked into the living room and saw two of my sisters, not saying a word. When my mom and dad came home I just wanted my mom to know so I told her. She, being herself, yelled it to the rest of the family and called all of our friends and family.

Kristen's Story
I was 14 when I first had mine. All my friends had already had theirs for years. My mom was constantly asking the pediatrician why I hadn't started. It was extremely embarrassing. She used to have regular discussions about it with my aunts and grandmother. Completely humiliating and I always felt like a freak. When I finally got it, I was on Christmas vacation. I remember taking Pepto Bismol because I thought I had diarrhea. Later that day when I started cramping it occurred to me what it really was and told my mom. She bought me the "Friend" Care Bear. I thought that was nice, until I found out she called everyone she knew to tell them I was FINALLY a woman!

Betsy's Story
I started my period on the last day of the 7th grade. I had just arrived home from school and was looking forward to a wonderfully carefree summer. I went to the bathroom and my period started. I yelled to my Mom to tell her, and to ask what to do, but she was too embarrassed to talk about it so she simply tossed me a box of maxi pads. I had no idea what to expect. I quietly endured the cramps and wondered if any of my friends had gone through it yet. When my Dad came home from work, my Mom told him. He called me into the family room and started talking about how I was a "woman now", and that we were going out to dinner to celebrate. The whole thing was really uncomfortable--from the cramps, to my Mom's embarrassment and lack of communication, to my Dad's celebration idea. I learned how NOT to handle it with my daughter!