Is Menstruation a Good Thing? and other questions

Factual Questions
1

Okay, this is about the 3rd time I’ve tried to submit THIs *@$%^ question. I reallyyyyyyyy hope it works this time. (its my first time posting). after having to type the story about it over and over, i am just going to shorten it!

a close friend of mine did a project on menstruation for her evolution class. we talked about it. she told me that her articles (from professional journals, like “Journal of Evolutionay Biology” etc) stated that it was birth control pills and other chemical means of contraception was a bad thing for women’s bodies, and that haveing a period every month had beneficial factors for women’s health. she was pretty alarmed, and while we both had considered birth control pills (because so many girls on our hall took the pill), we threw away the idea right there. Condoms aren’t so bad! :slight_smile:

Then i recently read an article in US NEWS and Report about birth control pills and other chemical methods (like the ring, the injection, etc) and it siad that it was a BAD thing to have a period every month! the doctor the article interviewed said that it was “unnatural” for women to have a period every month and probably unhealthy, because our ancestors were pregnant so much that they had few periods during their life time.

I am really just curious to know who’s right. Is menstruation a good thing? why is it starting earlier and earlier in women? what are its health benefits? IS it a good thing or a bad thing to have one every month? ARe chemical birth control methods detrimental to women’s health? (screwing with our natural homornal balance CAN’T be a good thing!), and is it good practice to just make it stop and go whenever you want? I believe the injection can stop periods to only 4 times a year. Is that healthy? have studies been done on this to show long term effects?

i really am curious about this and want to know. i hope you guys can help me. if not, maybe you can direct me to a place/book/website where i can find my answers.

Cecil’s recent column on menopause actually reminded me to ask this question…
Thanks

2

From personal experience, I’d say menstruation is a BAD thing…

3

It is a good thing, it cleans the vagina of all the nasty stuff that comes with semen.

4

No it doesn’t. It clears the uterine lining after no implantation of a fertilized egg. This is necessary, a uterus cannot always be in a state of readiness for fertilization, it cannot maintain such a lush uterine lining so long without risk of complications.

For most of human evolution, menstruation was infrequent, because most women of childbearing age were pregnant or nursing more often than not. Women today menstruate 4 to 5 times more often in their lifetime than their ancestors. And the uterus did not evolve for those conditions. So certain systems, such as the endocrine system, can go awry.

QtM, MD

5

Here’s a nice site which discusses this:

http://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/r/rmumme/FS101/ResearchPapers/RachelBayer.html

6

For me, menstruation is a good thing. I HAVE to take the pill because my estrogen levels aren’t high enough to make me have a period on my own, so taking the pill helps me have periods. Apparently, this is helpful at keeping harmful “symptoms” of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) at bay. Lots of women have this syndrome, and it often leads to cancer.

On the other hand, one of my friends takes the pill to NOT get her period. She takes them straight through without the placebo week. I think she just asked her dr. if she could avoid periods and this is what he did for her. I’m guessing he thinks it’s ok for her not to have one.

There was an article in Cosmo a year or so about this (making your body not menstuate) and like many other things, the medical world is half and half on whether or not it’s a good or bad thing.

Personally, I feel comfort in getting my period, but that’s just because I didn’t get it for so many years. If my body is supposed to be getting rid of the old uterine lining, I’d prefer that to happen. I mean, what happens with the uterine lining when you DON’T bleed? Does it collect in there? ick.

7

I’m no expert, but from what I’ve heard, getting your period is a good thing. It cleanses out the lining in the uterus. This way, the body can make sure that it always has a FRESH place for a baby.

8

I think the real question is less is it good or bad to menstruate, but rather HOW OFTEN should it occur? Should it be every 28 days (which, while damn regular and easy to schedule your life around, it is very frequent) or every 3 months (like the Depo-Provera shot) ?

I don’t think there is an answer yet, and every “study” I can think of off-hand would be so tainted with environmental/food habits/stress/exercise/etc etc that there is no way to isolate the variables needed to study the benefits/detriments of having a period every x amount of time.

9

Actually, a lot of women on Depo stop menstruating altogether after the first year on the shot. The uterus basically goes dormant, and they don’t have a period again until they quit taking the shots.

As for periods being inherently good or bad, I don’t think there’s a right answer for that. I will say, however, that menstruation is a giant pain in my ass, and I for one look forward to menopause or the day I talk someone into yanking that shit out, whichever comes first.

10

ZipperJJ, the uterine lining does not collect. What happens most often with Depo is that an egg is not released from an ovary. This means that the uterine lining does not form as it has no ‘reason’ to do so.

When the occasional egg does escape to the uterus, the lining there is a bit wonky. It does not allow the egg to attach. In cases like these, the lining is still expelled as it was triggered by the egg. So no ‘saving up’ there, either.

I actually haven’t gotten my period once since going on the shot over two years ago. It’s a money saver, if nothing else. The medical qualities I can’t comment on.

You can find out more about Depo at: http://www.depoprovera.com/consumer/about_depo/how_does.htm

11

The fact an adult pre-menopausal woman is healthy enough to menstruate is generally a positive indication of health. If she doesn’t (assuming no delibrate chemical interventions), it indicates something is wrong. That “something” may or may not be serious.

In part, because girls are healthier and eat better than they did 100 or 150 years ago. Frequent illness can hamper development, as can inadequate diet (which is why underfed Olympic girl gymnasts look so young - they aren’t eating enough to allow their bodies to mature.)

That’s an interesting question. I’m not sure there are, exactly, “benefits”. Monthlies are a good thing in that it’s an indicator the plumbing is working. On the other hand, in a woman who is low in iron or who bleeds excessively monthlies can pose a health risk and cause unplesent symptoms.

Yes and no - birth control pills are probably healthier than squeezing out a kid every 9-18 months from the age of 15 to 45. Pregnancy has risks, too. There are certain hormone problems that are very effectively treated by various medications that are also used for birth control. So this is a woman-by-woman decision.

Personally, I opted not to take the pills. This was largely due to a frightening number of blood clots and other complications in women in my family who did use them - for some reason, many of my relatives seem prone to that. So I used different means to prevent pregancy. But many women use the pill with no difficulties their entire reproductive lives.

In other words, there’s no one answer for this.

Nobody knows for sure on this one.

Yes, but not many, the group size has been small, and the results have been ambiguous. It’s very hard to conduct stufies for the necessary 20 or 30 or more years to have a real answer on this sort of thing, and to control for all the variables involved.

Also - our ancestors had fewer periods because they were pregnant much of the time, or enduring famines that dropped their body weight too low to keep menstruating. This is very different from chemically preventing the monthlies. That doesn’t mean reducing monthlies to quarterlies isn’t a good thing - we just don’t know. Until a significant number of women try it for a couple decades we probably won’t know for sure, and maybe not even then.

12

That too, but it has been speculated by evolutionist that part of the reason for menstruation is to cleanse the vagina from the stuff brought in by semen. The aritcle I read had some interesting research behind it. It was in a journal at the library, I am looking for an online cite as I am not near the library and don’t remember which journal.

13

As a male, I’d have to say that it’s both a good and bad thing. Let’s go through the different points…

A. Good - I know I’m not going to be spending the next 18 years taking care of another one.

B. Bad - Mood swings hold an untold amount of grief

C. Good - Can’t think of anymore good, I’ll just go on with the bad

D. Bad - Hormones affect woman’s brains. Untold irrationality follows…

E. Bad - NO SEX FOR 5-7 DAYS! (optional, but in my experience woman don’t feel sexy when bloated)

As you can see from my examples, menstruation is definately bad

14

“That too, but it has been speculated by evolutionist that part of the reason for menstruation is to cleanse the vagina from the stuff brought in by semen.”

Although some young, photogenic woman was awarded a prize and got a whole lot of press for making that claim a few years back, it doesn’t really make any sense if you think about it.

For one thing, undesirable things enter elsewhere into your body all the time but your body doesn’t deal with these things by periodic, wholesale sloughing of tissue. For example, you don’t slough your lung tissue or the inside of your nose, or your esophagus.

Aother reason is that sloughing is ineffective for dealing with infection. Many kinds of bacteria can swim. They’d just move from the old lining to then new lining as the old lining was sloughed off.

Besides, if regular periods were important for preventing infections, wouldn’t other primates have them too? And, while were at it, if regular periods were important for preventing infections, wouldn’t pregant women and anovulatory women get more uterine infections than other women?

15

Oh, I just had to add the female replies…

Ditto

Uh, right, men are NEVER affected by hormones, and they’re never irrational – NOT!

At least we women know in advance about these things - men are either irrational all the time, or it hits them randomly. No way to schedule around it.

YAAAAH! 5-7 days of relief from being pawed, groped, and prevented from catching up on sleep (optional, but in my experience most men don’t find bleeding women sexy)

16

What research I’ve done personally has pretty much convinced me that nobody knows. My doctor agreed that having regular periods may be beneficial, or detrimental, but that there isn’t a hugely obvious difference, so other things are more important.

I manage my pill taking so that I have a period every three or four months, rather than every month. YMMV

17

I know at least one young lady whose sexual desire is much stronger during that time.