Why do you think that we have periods?

[Mooshamoo]

I was just talking about this with my mum yesterday. I'm 39, so I have had a good few periods at this stage. They have always been an inconvenience.

I was just thinking, why do we have them? Surely the body constantly building up bloody tissue every month, then expelling it every month, is not the most effective biological system.

The uterus lining builds up in expectation of a fertilised egg every month. Why.

Why does the body not just wait until there is a fertilised egg present and then thicken the uterine lining. Or keep it constantly thick?

It's just annoying.

Or if we have to have it the way it is, why do we have it every single month.

Lots of animals only have periods once a year.

It's such a strange design. I know I'm not the first and last to think this. What to do you all think about it?

Coil, injection, implant

Lots of different contraception can have a 'side effect' of stopping periods

I believe I read somewhere women have evolved to be extra horny during early pregnancy as a way to try and keep the man around.

Those are all using the same hormones as the BC pill, so no good for OP as she is high risk for hormonal contraception.

Depends

She'd be better off getting advice from a family planning clinic than anyone on here though

Mini pill has left risk factors than the combined pill - maybe you could take that OP? That's what I'm on and I don't get periods anymore. Thank god. I feel like I lost over a decade of my life to periods.

*less risk factors

But yeah talk to a doctor. Maybe get a second opinion. I got terrible advice from a doctor who was supposedly a specialist in sexual health so maybe ask a different doctor

We probably have period every month due to the fact that in premodern societies one half to two thirds of children died before age 5. We’d have died out as a species if women could only get pregnant once a year. Especially since in those same societies malnutrition also suppressed fertility & even stopped periods.

So it’s to our advantage to be fertile anytime we are well, fat enough to carry a pregnancy to term and then to our advantage for fertility to be suppressed while breastfeeding to increase chances of the baby getting to proper childhood and therefore better chance to reach adulthood.

There are reasons for everything

we have periods for infection control, to prevent bacteria etc from sperm becoming established in the uterus, which they would, when the lining is thick and welcoming!

We have periods throughout the year, as humans dont have a "breeding season" and typically in prehistoric times, women from the same tribe would have got pregnant at a time favourable for the tribe, all together, to share breast feeding etc

We have the menopause to spend the second half of our adult life available to support our offspring raising our grandchildren, when w are not producing any more children ourselves

but these are not inefficiencies, just our ignorance in understanding them

The appendix used to be considered unnecessary, now its known to have a role in the immune system

Its was just held up as an example of a useless organ before it was understood

Animals in the wild tend to get pregnant every year once they hit adulthood. If women still had baby after baby throughout our childbearing years, with breastfeeding lasting for a couple of years with each child, we wouldn't be having many periods either.

Men just die of early of heart attacks instead :)

I wondered this for years until I read an article about a female anthropologist who went to live with a tribe somewhere, I think, in South America.

She went to live with them for over a year and discovered about nine months in that her period suddenly changed dramatically. She no longer bled slowly but just passed what she described as a "cast" of her uterus all at once.

Her thesis was that this is actually what we are supposed to do, as it makes more sense from a survival point of view than bleeding slowly over a number of days where the smell of blood allows predators to track the female.

She also hypothesised that this maybe was what was behind all the myths of women giving birth to the moon, that they actually did "give birth" to a "moon" cast of their uterus every month if not pregnant or feeding.

Her thoughts were that women no longer did this because our lifestyles have changed so dramatically over the last 1000 years. We no longer are permanently on the move during daylight hours, and our diets disrupt our hormones, but when you go back to those old modes of living, it starts to happen again.

It's always made sense to me, this, because we expel waste in one go. We don't walk around slowly leaking urine unless there's a problem.

Yeah but the appendix doesn't cause us pain and suffering.

I remember In school having to do exams during really painful periods. Boys didn't have that added distraction.

I remember being 20, in my first job meant to be in a meeting and I had to go and sit crying in the toilet, because my periods were so painful. I remember the pain used to go right down my thighs .

Periods have ruined a lot of my life. Im sick of being a woman

Very interesting!

That seems like a much better and efficient way to do it. I'm going to see if there is a documentary I can watch on this.

Me too! It's been life changing for me but heard such mixed experiences

Interesting topic. I just looked up and lots of mammals have 21 day cycles but reabsorb the uterus lining rather than menstruate. Some species don't have cycles in autumn and winter (sensible as the resources would be too scarce for bringing up young).

We have periods because we have evolved out of our natural state when we would mostly have been pregnant, breastfeeding or dead - all of which prevent periods.

I consider them to be a huge design fault, but I guess in the original plan we would not have had many owing to the above.

I've been breastfeeding for 9 months now so haven't had a period for a year and a half. Not looking forward to getting them back. Had almost forgotten what they were like until I came across this bloody thread 😫

Why don't we have periods when we breastfre, even though we could get pregnant while we are breastfeeding?

You're supposed to be more interested? Fuck me, he could make me puke my guts up just by looking at me for the first 39 weeks part of my pregnancies - sex was the last thing on my mind (other than the obvious regret for what I had clearly done to myself as a result).

I don’t know but they are really annoying and I didn’t even get a break when breastfeeding mine returned straight away (5 weeks) each time despite ebf 😡

Just posted this but speak for yourself I was one of the unlucky ones that still got them!

You've obviously never witnessed the male of the species go through the trauma of man flu!

I'm pretty sure it's because you obviously ovulate around two weeks before you get a period... So you could have not been ovulating (and not having periods) until you do start ovulating again (and then get pregnant).

I think it’s a cleansing thing. As has been mentioned unswayed dogs have seasons twice a year but they are also much more at risk of a serious womb infection called pyometritis.