Female hormones
The stereotypical idea that women are at the mercy of the hormone creature has been touted for years. Whatever you think is not true. While women’s hormones have a great influence on our lives, we don’t have to become slaves to those things. Understanding how these hormones may affect women’s health. Body, intellect and emotions will better enable the female in helping to minimize the negative effects of hormones, and help to enhance the positive effects.
Infancy
Generally we tend to believe that our hormones begin to kick in at puberty. They actually affect our bodies during our earliest childhood. Newborn babies (girls as well as boys) can have slightly enlarged breasts, accompanied by a bit of milk production occasionally at birth, because of the female hormone, estrogen, which is in the mother’s body and passes through to the placenta while she is pregnant which stimulates breast development in the infant. Typically the enlargement disappears after a few weeks, but in infant daughters some breast enlargement may continue infrequently in the first two years, but it is now due to the baby girl’s own hormones affecting the breast tissue. The enlargement of the breast may come and go repeatedly over months or years, before it will completely disappear in childhood.
Puberty
When puberty begins, the hormones begin to make serious, permanent changes to a young lady’s body. Her breasts develop into the larger more womanly shape of an adult. She develops hair under her arms and pubic area and she will have noticeable height increases as growth spurt occurs. At some point during puberty her monthly menstrual cycles will start, as the growth begins to slow down. From the start of puberty to the end, the process usually is around four years in length; not surprisingly, this is a hard time for girls as they experience some difficulty dealing with the changes in the body, they emerge into sexuality, with the beginning of fertility and an emotional roller coaster ride, as they begin the ritual of growing up childhood to blooming teenager.
The body is an amazing creation which has the capability to begin puberty at birth but allows the mechanism to ‘switch’ on at the correct time. Eventually, this mechanism that keeps puberty to bay winds up, giving the hormones the go ahead to begin to the change in the body, when they exert the growth spurts. The hypothalamus, a part in the brain, starts to release tiny pulses of hormone, every 90 minutes or so. This pulsing stimulates the pituitary gland (which is located in the brain also) to produce lutenist hormone (LH) and the follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), they then trigger a young lady’s ovaries to start making the other hormones.
Female sex hormones
The hormones made by the ovaries are the most important and are called the female sex hormones or known as sex steroids as well. Estrogen and progesterone are the primary hormones excreted by the ovaries. The ovaries were created to produce testosterone, the male hormone. During puberty, the hormone estrogen is responsible in the development of the breasts and makes the vagina, uterus (womb) and Fallopian tubes (egg carriers) to develop and mature. The female hormones contributes ton growth and changes the location of fat in a teen’s body, this is generally placed around the hip area, buttocks and thighs in preparation for child carrying. Testosterone is essential in promoting good muscle and bone growth.
Once puberty begins the hormones; LH, FSH, estrogen and progesterone, are essential in the regulating of a young woman’s monthly menstrual cycle, resulting in her bleeding or periods. Following its own pattern, each hormone individually rises and falls at different points during the cycle but together they allow a predictable event to happen every month. One egg alone (out of hundreds of thousands in each ovary) matures or ripens as it is released from the ovary it begins the journey down the Fallopian tube and into the womb. An unfertilized egg along with the levels of estrogen and progesterone produced by the ovary will fall. Without the fertilized egg from these hormones, the lining of the womb, which is full of blood, is shed, resulting in the flow of blood or a period.
Pregnancy
Once the egg is fertilized with the male sperm and a pregnancy results, a woman’s hormones change dramatically. The fall in estrogen and progesterone which normally occurs at end of the menstrual cycle doesn’t happen, so no blood or period is seen. Seattle HCG (human chorionic gonadotrophin),a new hormone in the body, is produced as the placenta develops, which stimulates the ovaries to produce the higher levels of oestrogen and progesterone which are needed to maintain pregnancy. Most of the early pregnancy testing kits are now designed to detect the minutest amount of HCG in a woman’s urine, as early as a day or two after her monthly cycle should have started.
By month four of the pregnancy, the placenta is the primary producer of hormones, estrogen and progesterone, allowing the ovaries to rest. These hormones thicken the lining in the womb, increase the volume of blood which circulates primarily in the womb and breasts, and sufficiently relax the muscles of the womb to make room for the infant growing there. As the time of childbirth approaches, other hormones are stimulated to help the womb to contract during and after labor, while releasing the production of breast milk immediately following delivery.
After childbirth
What happens to those hormones after the child is born? Levels of estrogen and progesterone hormones fall dramatically with other hormones the body has produced, triggering yet another round of physical changes. The womb returns to its normal pre-pregnancy size, while the pelvic floor muscle tone is regaining its tone and the volume of blood circulation returns to normal allowing the woman’s body to return to a normal flow. The drastic changes in the level of hormones can play a part in postnatal depression, but its not generally understood why some women do have postnatal depression while others do not based on hormone levels alone. One explanation is that some new mothers are more prone to postnatal depression by the fluctuations in hormones than other women.
Fluctuations in hormones have been the topic of discussion for many years but it is still undetermined how hormones are responsible for the differing range of both physical and psychological symptoms known as the premenstrual syndrome or PMS. While the medical profession acknowledges symptoms occur such as breast tenderness, bloating or swollen abdominals, crankiness, depression and other symptoms right before the menstrual cycle begins; however it is difficult to determine what causes the symptoms. Is it hormone fluctuations, or perhaps changes in the chemicals in the brain, perhaps its emotional and social pressure/problems or a perhaps a little of all three. Whatever it is its still up for discussion.
The menopause
The last significant change in hormones for older women occurs about the time of her last menstrual cycle or period – commonly known as menopause. Somewhere between three to five years before a woman’s last cycle the ovaries begin to stop functioning normally and deteriorate. As the ovaries slow production it causes her cycles to sporadic with a longer or shorter amount of flow. The bleeding can become heavier or it may be lighter. As the lining of the womb stops thickening due to the ovaries cease in production of estrogen there is no longer any blood to flow.
During a the life of a woman, from teen through menopause, estrogen is produced to protect the heart and bones, keeping them healthy and also allowing the proper function of the parts that are specifically a woman, her uterus, breasts, and vagina. Observing the loss of the hormone estrogen that occurs with menopause it is wise to note that it can, have a detrimental impact on health; not to mention the uncomfortable symptoms of the body withdrawing from estrogen primarily hot flushes and sweats at night, and a lack of estrogen increases the risk of heart disease and osteoporosis. Some women also experience vaginal dryness, discomfort or pain during sex, recurring urinary infections as well as incontinence. The loss of estrogen has been known to cause mild depression, crankiness and inability to concentrate, which some women have experienced during menopause. However, menopause doesn’t need to be a trying time that’s where modern science steps in a woman may request hormone replacement therapy (HRT) a reliable and effective treatment to ease unwanted symptoms. Hormone Replacement Therapy medication is used to prevent other health problems, such as the development of osteoporosis or perhaps heart disease in the future.
An important thing to remember is that hormones play a crucial role from the moment a woman is born until she dies. Hormones shape the way our bodies work and look as well as he most important happenings women experience, from pregnancy, childbirth, and finally menopause. For many women there are occasions when we would gladly crab about the necessary hormones in our bodies but just think, our lives would be dull without those wonderful hormones that make us uniquely women.
