The Menstrual Cycle
The menstrual cycle prepares, renews, and refreshes the reproductive system for thirty to forty years of a woman’s life. Continuous daily activity, mostly unseen and unfelt, occurs in these organs as a result of the stimulation of the female hormones. Until recently this activity was not well understood. Today it is, and this has made possible many advances in the control of conception and in the treatment of menstrual irregularities and infertility.
Only one step of the whole cycle has always made itself plainly known: menstruation. Coming from the Latin word mensis, meaning month, menstruation occurs approximately monthly in most women and is the shedding of the lining of the uterus. Menstruation makes way for a new lining and is the only instance in nature where a loss of blood does not signify injury but is, instead, a sign of good health. (We might mention here that the word menopause has the obvious meaning of a pause in menstruation.)
Posted in Understanding the Basics
To Ed Wheat Sr. and Gladys Gibson Wheat, whose commitment, devotion, warmth, generosity, and integrity stood for fifty years as a beautiful picture of genuine agape love.