CHFD220 American Military University Week 3 Menstruation Cycle Discussion Forum 3: It’s About That TimeImagine that your 9 year old daughter has just told

CHFD220 American Military University Week 3 Menstruation Cycle Discussion Forum 3: It’s About That TimeImagine that your 9 year old daughter has just told you that her best friend has started her period. She wants to know when she is going to start hers. She also is confused about what a period even is.Write out a potential script you could use to answer your daughter’s questions. Explain when she can expect to begin her period and describe what occurs during the menstrual cycle.Minimum 250 words CHFD220 | LESSON 3
Reproduction
Learning Activity 3.1: Female Reproductive System and Menstrual Cycle Interactive
The Female Reproductive System: Presented by Dr. Fabian
The Female Reproductive System and Menstrual Cycle
Please note that this is an interactive demonstration. Ensure that your speakers are turned on.
EXTERNAL FEMALE GENITALS
It is as important to know about sexual anatomy and reproductive functioning
as it is to know about any other part of your body. The external female
genitals (the vulva) consist of the mons pubis, labia majora, labia minora, clitoris,
vestibule, and urethral opening. The clitoris, protected by the clitoral hood, is a
very sensitive structure because of its abundance of nerve endings.
INTERNAL FEMALE GENITALS
The internal female genitals consist of the vagina, uterus, fallopian tubes, and
the ovaries. Large numbers of ova, or eggs, are present in each ovary at birth.
The egg develops inside a capsule called a Graafian follicle and is discharged
from the capsule when it has matured. As the egg or ovum moves through the
fallopian tube to the endometrium in the uterus, the egg is attached or
expelled depending on whether it has been fertilized.
Learning Activity 3.2: Interactive Flashcards
Review the female reproductive system with these Interactive Flashcards.
The Breasts
Breasts have significance in sexual arousal as well as in providing milk for the newborn
baby. The stimulation of the newborn sucking on the nipple causes the pituitary gland to
secrete prolactin, stimulating production of breast milk. Additionally, the nipples are
richly supplied with nerve endings that respond with pleasurable sexual feeling when
stimulated. During sexual arousal, the nipples become erect. However, neither the size
nor the shape of the breast is related to the amount of sensitivity experienced by a
woman. Today, many women have their breasts enlarged. Contrary to popular belief, no
convincing evidence exists that chronic disease is more likely to develop in women with
silicone breast implants than in women without implants.
Hormones
Hormones are chemical substances secreted into the bloodstream by endocrine glands
and carried to tissues and organs, which they stimulate. The pituitary is a pea-shaped
gland located at the base of the brain that serves as a master gland to the others. It
secretes sexual hormones called gonadotropins that act to stimulate the gonads
(ovaries and testes). The two principal gonadotropins are follicle-stimulating hormone
(FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH).
Menstruation
It is not entirely clear why menstruation begins (menarche). One hypothesis is that the
increase in body fat that results from hormonal secretions during puberty “turns on”
menstruation. Women begin menstruating at about 8 to 16 years of age. The menstrual
cycle is often characterized according to three phases or changes that occur in the
uterus: 1) proliferative, 2) secretory, and 3) menstrual. Alternatively, scholars in human
sexuality sometimes divide the menstrual cycle based on changes that occur in the
ovaries into three phases: 1) the follicular phase, 2) ovulation, and 3) the luteal phase.
Although menstrual cycles vary in length, the luteal phase (from ovulation to
menstruation) lasts approximately 4 days.
Several conditions are commonly associated with menstruation,
including dysmenorrhea, amenorrhea, and premenstrual syndrome (PMS).
Menstruation that is painful or uncomfortable is referred to as dysmenorrhea.
Menstruation that is accompanied by the absence of a menstrual flow is
called amenorrhea. Menstruation that is accompanied by mood changes or other
emotional discomforts is referred to as PMS.
Sexually-Related Diseases: Self-Care
and Prevention
Self-care and disease prevention focus on many of the sexual organs, including
breasts, cervix, uterus, ovaries, and vagina. Breast cancer is the leading cancer in
woman and the second major cause of cancer death. Surprisingly, no specific cause of
breast cancer is known. However, certain risk factors that predispose women to breast
cancer are known. Breast self-care includes monthly self-exams, clinical breast exams,
and mammograms. Other breast disorders include cystic mastitis, fibroadenoma, nipple
discharge, and breast abscess (infection).
Learning Activity 3.4:
Self-Care Assessments and Quizzes
Self-Care Assessments
The Male Reproductive System
Learning Activity 3.5: Male Reproductive System
The Male Reproductive System: Presented by Dr. Fabian
The Male Reproductive System
Please note that this is an interactive demonstration. Ensure that your speakers are turned on.
MALE EXTERNAL GENITALS
The male external genitals consist of the penis and the scrotum. The penis contains
the urethra, through which the ejaculate is emitted. Some penises have the foreskin
(prepuce) intact, whereas others have had the foreskin surgically removed, a process
called circumcision. The medical rationale for circumcision has varied over the years.
The latest thinking is that circumcision may prevent urinary tract infections in male
infants as well as decrease the incidence of certain types of cancer in males and
reproductive problems in females. Circumcisions are also performed for religious and
cultural reasons.
MALE INTERNAL GENITALS
The male internal genitals contain numerous structures including the urethra, corpora
cavernosa, corpus spongiosum, and the testes. It is the engagement of blood in the
corpora cavernosa and the corpus spongiosum during sexual stimulation that makes the
penis erect. The testes are where sperm are produced (in the seminiferous tubules) and
where testosterone is manufactured (in the interstitial cells). Sperm are produced in
the seminiferous tubules; are stored in the epididymis; travel up the vas deferens; meet
with secretions of the prostate, Cowper’s glands, and seminal vesicles to form semen;
and are ejaculated through the urethra. Normal sperm contain 23 chromosomes. Each
sperm contains a sex chromosome that determines the sex of the offspring.
Testosterone, which is responsible for male secondary characteristics, is manufactured
in the testes located between the seminiferous tubules. Ejaculation is the expulsion
through the penis of semen, the mixture in which the sperm are carried. Approximately
300 million sperm are expelled in a single ejaculation.
Learning Activity 3.6: Interactive Flashcards
Review the male reproductive system with these Interactive Flashcards.
Hormones
During puberty, boys become capable of reproduction. The capacity for male
reproduction is a product of increased secretion of androgens and the development of
secondary sexual characteristics. Accompanying male reproductive capacity, and also a
result of increased androgen production, is a heightened interest in sex. During puberty,
increased testosterone level leads to growth of the penis, prostate, seminal vesicles,
and epididymis. Males cannot ejaculate before puberty because the prostate and
seminal vesicles are not functional until they are “turned on” by the increased level of
testosterone that emerge during puberty.
Sexually-Related Diseases: Self-Care
and Prevention
Males are subjected to various reproductive-system illnesses and conditions. Among
these are breast cancer, inflammation of the prostate (prostatitis), enlargement of the
prostate (benign prostatic hyperplasia, or BPH), and prostate cancer. There are
effective treatments for each of these conditions. However, treatments are most
effective when the condition is diagnosed early. Hence males need to obtain regular
medical screening and perform self-examinations.
Breast cancer occurs in men, albeit rarely. Although treatment for men and woman are
the same, the psychological and emotional consequences of breast removal are not as
significant for males as for females. Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of
cancer death in men. Periodic physical exams can help screen for prostate
cancer. Testicular cancer occurs most often in men aged 15 to 40. Monthly testicular
self-exams can help catch the disease at an early stage, where treatment prognoses
are good.
Learning Activity 3.7:
Self-Care Assessments and Quizzes
Self-Care Assessments
Conclusion
In this lesson we discussed reproduction. You identified the parts of the female and
male, internal and external, reproductive system. You also explained the role of
hormones as they pertain to sexuality, including being able to describe what occurs
during menstruation, including menarche, the menstrual cycle, and problems associated
with each.
In regard to self-care and prevention measures, we learned that “the breast is the
leading site of cancer in women, and breast cancer is the second leading cause of
cancer deaths among women” (Greenberg et al., 2014, p. 131). Self-care and
prevention for women include annual clinical breast exams, mammograms,
gynecological exams, and Pap smears. Males too should have regular screenings for
cancers and problems associated with the prostate.
Menstruation
from The International Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality
View article on Credo
attitudes, contraception
evolution
menarche
menstruation
ovarian function
Anthropologists have been interested in menstruation from numerous perspectives, which include the
cross?cultural attitudes toward it, its evolutionary significance, variations in ovarian function across
populations, and the health implications of the menstrual cycle. Some cultures celebrate this visible sign of
women’s reproductive powers while others regard it as a pollutant. Several theories have been proposed
to understand the evolutionary and adaptive significance of menstruation, which include ridding the body of
pathogens, the metabolic costliness of maintaining the endometrium, and maternal self?protection. A much
greater understanding of ovarian function and its relationship to many factors such as living conditions,
energetics, and nutritional status, has been attained. Cross?cultural attitudes toward menstruation continue
to vary and are a significant area of interest in light of the introduction of cycle?suppressing contraception.
The suggestion that hormonally?induced amenorrhea is healthy because it represents an ancestral condition
of few lifetime menstrual cycles is challenged.
Menstruation has captured the interest of anthropologists, who have explored cross?cultural attitudes
toward it, its evolutionary significance, variations in ovarian function across populations, and, more recently,
the health implications of the hormonal fluctuations of the menstrual cycle. Menstruation, a shedding of the
outer layer of the endometrium initiated by decreased levels of estrogen and progesterone, is a trait
shared with many of our primate relatives. Copious bleeding occurs in Old World monkeys, apes, and
humans and in variable amounts in New World monkeys. Follicle?stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing
hormone (LH) increase around the time of ovulation and are responsible for the production of estrogen
and progesterone, respectively, and the release of the ovum (see Figure 1). Menstrual bleeding occurs
approximately fourteen days after ovulation if the ovum is not fertilized. The first menstruation, menarche,
generally occurs at age twelve but may be as young as ten or as old as sixteen. Menopause, the cessation
of menstruation, occurs at approximately age fifty?one.
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Figure 1 Hormonal profile of the menstrual cycle.
Cultural aspects of menstruation
Attitudes towards menstruation vary culturally and in some cases are reflections of other infrastructural
characteristics of women’s status. For instance, among Haida women of the Pacific coast who had
significant roles in their community, a potlatch was held to celebrate a girl’s first menstruation and her
consequent reproductive powers. First menstruation among the Apache of the American Southwest was a
deeply spiritual event that benefitted the girl, her family, and the whole community. In cultures where
women’s reproductive powers are not celebrated menstruation is often considered a pollutant.
Menstruating women are prohibited from going near men or their hunting gear, from preparing food, and
are confined to menstrual huts. Among the Tiwi of Melville Island, Australia, girls are isolated at menarche
and held responsible for the well?being of their community, especially the men, by adhering to a multitude
of strict taboos such as not making a fire, not touching water, and only talking in a whisper. Hawaiians
traditionally regarded menstrual blood as mana, a powerful life force that could overpower male mana. To
ensure their own protection and that of others, women stayed in menstrual huts. Although Hawaiian
women’s reproductive powers were recognized and they had more status and independence than Tiwi
women, there remains an element of danger associated with menstrual blood that serves to divide the
genders. Turn?of?the?nineteenth?century Euro?American culture saw the influence of the medical
community in viewing menstrual blood as a “menotoxin,” having the power to wilt flowers, cause gonorrhea
during intercourse, and be a danger to open wounds.
Why do women menstruate?
The adaptive significance of ovulation, and whether it is concealed in humans, has received considerable
attention from physical anthropologists and primatologists in deciphering its role in past and current human
sociosexual behavior. The shift towards the evolutionary implications of menstruation occurred with Margie
Profet’s hypothesis (1993) that menstruation evolved to protect the reproductive tract from pathogens
introduced by sperm during sexual intercourse. An evolutionary biologist, she theorized that potentially
infected endometrial tissue was shed and menstrual fluid transported large numbers of leukocytes and
immunoglobulins to cleanse the reproductive tract of sperm?borne pathogens. Profet’s theory was
challenged by Beverly Strassmann (1999), an anthropologist working with millet farmers of Mali, the Dogon,
a natural fertility group in which women spend a large part of their reproductive lives either pregnant or
lactating. Dogon women, who reside in menstrual huts during menstruation, average less than one hundred
menstrual cycles in a lifetime, a circumstance thought to reflect our ancestral condition. Strassmann
suggests that it is more energetically efficient to shed the endometrium when pregnancy does not occur
than to maintain it in a state of readiness for implantation, which is energetically expensive. In support of
her hypothesis, she found that women’s metabolic rate increases in the last two weeks of the menstrual
cycle compared to the first two weeks. More recently, researchers have focused on the adaptive
significance of endometrial differentiation, a process that prepares the endometrium for implantation, that
either serves to protect the mother from the invading fetal tissue or for the mother to sense
chromosomal abnormalities of the embryo. In this scenario menstruation occurs as a byproduct since the
differentiated endometrium cannot be reused.
Are all women’s menstrual cycles the same?
Women’s menstrual cycles are affected by their life history, body fat, age, living conditions, physical
environment, nutritional status, energetics, and genetics. Women living in contemporary, industrialized
countries reach menarche as young as eight years old, much younger than in the past or than women living
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in industrializing countries. More recently, age at menarche has been used as a potential marker of
environmental pollutants and phytoestrogen exposure.
Ovarian function, indicated by hormone levels, cycle length, and duration of bleeding, is highly variable. In
extreme conditions of energy output, such as that found in athletes, women may become amenorrheic
(cease menstruating) or oligomenorrheic (having irregular cycles). Women living in ecologically constrained
conditions who suffer periods of seasonal hunger, like the Lese of the Ituri Forest of the Congo, or
periods of intense physical labor, like the Tamang of Nepal’s Himalayas or rural farmers of Poland, also have
impaired ovarian function marked by increasing cycle lengths, shorter duration of menstrual bleeds, more
anovulatory cycles, and variable hormone levels. The extent to which this affects overall fertility is unclear.
Does the menstrual cycle affect women’s behavior?
If a woman is feeling confident and full of sexual and creative energy, she is probably in her peak fertile
phase, that is, ovulating. Anthropologists, along with other social scientists, have found that sexual behavior
and physical and emotional health can vary across the phases reaching highs of overall well?being around the
time of ovulation. Women are more sexually active during the follicular and ovulatory phases than the luteal
and menstrual phases (see Figure 1). Increased food cravings and intake, especially sweets, occurs during
the luteal and pre?menstrual phases when women also experience more disrupted sleep.
More recently, an association between the menstrual cycle and the immune system has been found
explaining some of the long?term gender differences in health as well as inconsistencies noted between
women. Estrogen is an immune?enhancer, which contributes to women living longer and healthier lives but
also makes them more susceptible to autoimmune diseases. Pain sensitivity increases when estrogen is
low while anxiety decreases when estrogen and progesterone are high. Using C?reactive protein in
circulating blood as a biomarker for inflammation, it was found that the inflammatory response varies
across the menstrual cycle. Higher levels of estrogen have an anti?inflammatory effect and increased levels
of progesterone have a pro?inflammatory effect. The health implications are significant in understanding
why women’s health status, or response to treatment, may fluctuate based on the phase of their cycle.
Why is cycle?suppressing birth control so popular?
The introduction of cycle?suppressing birth control such as Depo?Provera, a progesterone injection, and
Seasonale, a contraceptive pill that allows women to menstruate once every three months, has sparked a
debate over whether menstrual suppression is healthier because it more closely approximates an ancient
state of pregnancy or lactational amenorrhea. In contrast to our ancestral sisters, women in industrialized
countries experience approximately four hundred lifetime menstrual cycles. Menstrual suppression gained
momentum with the suggestion that constant menstrual cycling, because it is an evolutionarily recent
occurrence which our bodies were not designed for, may increase the risk of breast cancer due to the
repeated exposure to endogenous hormones. The “stone?agers in the fast lane” rhetoric is intuitively
appealing but omits important considerations such as how exogenous hormones from contraception
affect women and what information might be lost by eliminating menstruation. Women’s overall well?being
fluctuates across the menstrual cycle as hormonal profiles change and oral contraception was designed to
mimic these rhythms. In contrast, women on Depo?Provera do not experience the positive emotional and
physical well?being that natural hormone women, and to a lesser degree women on oral contraceptives,
experience during ovulation. In fact, they do not experience any rhythmic fluctuations in well?being.
Lynnette Sievert, a biological anthropologist, points out that hormonally?induced amenorrhea during
pregnancy (high estrogen) and lactation (low estrogen) is not analogous to amenorrhea induced by Depo?
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Provera or Seasonale and, at least hormonally,…
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