Sorry if it’s a stupid question. I’m a boy and I’ve never rlly understood what it is and like exactly what happens. I’m 13 btw if that matters.
In: Biology
In short, a period is what happens when a woman’s body prepares itself to get pregnant, but does not get pregnant.
Pregnancy is a very complex thing — it’s growing an entire person inside another person. Starting from a few cells, moving right up to something that comes out with 4 limbs and screaming. To do that, the mother’s body needs to prepare itself.
It does this by making the inside of her womb (or uterus) nice and ‘comfy’ for the baby, and part of that involves sending lots of new blood vessels to the area. Blood is how the body sends nutrients and oxygen to where it needs to go. It’s how the cornflakes you ate for breakfast end up giving your brain or your muscles energy.
So the womb grows lots of new blood vessels (and other stuff!), getting ready to have the baby. But, if there’s no baby, then all that extra stuff isn’t really needed anymore, so it simply decays. This causes blood to pass out of the woman’s womb, down into her vagina, where it exits her body. These days, most women use products such as tampons, pads, or special cups to prevent the blood from getting everywhere and staining their underpants.
Periods are a natural thing, and part of life for all women. They usually happen every 3-5 weeks, but it’s different for everyone. Sometimes they can be accompanied by pain or other unpleasant symptoms. Some women can take medicine (usually birth control) to stop their periods. This might be because they don’t want to get pregnant, or maybe because their periods are especially painful or otherwise unpleasant.
Most periods last for 3-5 days, maybe a little more or less in some cases. During this time, women will wear tampons or cups to help control the bleeding.
If a woman doesn’t have a period, it can be because she’s pregnant. But it can also be for other reasons, especially early on when her body is first starting to have them. Women will continue to have periods, usually once a month or so, for a large part of their lives. Eventually, usually somewhere around age 50, the periods stop.
The important things to remember are that periods are perfectly natural, and that they affect everyone differently. Some women have really bad ones, some women hardly notice. Some have them often, others less frequently. They’re part of life, but often don’t get talked about because people can be embarrassed about them.
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