In a cohort study published in the journal Human Reproduction, it was observed that the from 5 years of menarche, the women ever fed on the soy formula during infancy found to experience more pain and discomfort during most of their periods. In an earlier study, it was observed that the young participants assigned to fed on soy-based formula experienced severe menstrual pain.

This analysis was carried out on the data from SELF including 1696 African-American women between age 23-35 years. The certainty of feeding soy formula during infancy to 1552 participants was assured through a self-administered questionnaire. The relative risk and 95% confidence interval were calculated using log-multinomial regression. It was found out that the participants who were fed on soy formula used hormonal contraception for menstrual pain and moderate to severe menstrual discomfort during most of the periods. These results help to study the effects of soy formula on the reproductive health of women.