STOCKHOLM • After its kids' video featuring animated dancing genitals went viral earlier this year, a Swedish children's show is now launching a video of singing tampons to teach youngsters about menstruation.

The Period Song will air tomorrow on the Barnkanalen children's channel of public service Swedish Television (SVT). It is a bid to explain menstruation to children and destigmatise the subject, SVT said.

One of the show's young hosts, Alex Hermansson, sings with teens and pulls on the tampons' strings to make them dance like marionettes before submerging them in a glass of red-coloured water.

The first verse goes: "It's a thing that happens to girls sometimes/ They don't want to talk about it/ Maybe they're a bit ashamed/ They don't want us to know anything at all/ But we know, that it, it's something totally normal/ We just need to be a little extra nice to them/ Show a little patience/ It's just a little blood.

"Period, period, hip hip hooray for period!/ The body's working as it should/ And that is really, really good - hooray!" it continues, as red drops splatter on the screen.

Menstruation "is a sign that as of now the body can create a life", Mr Hermansson said.

A clip produced and aired by SVT in January featured animated male and female genitals, called Snoppen och Snippan in Swedish and translated into English as Willie and Twinkle. It has been viewed more than 6.4 million times on YouTube.

That clip was intended as an educational tool, and was made after the word "snippan" was invented by a group of women who were dismayed by the lack of an acceptable slang term for vagina.

The clip divided opinion worldwide due to the realistic representation of the sexual organs.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE