Period.
Have you been struck by a thought and later found yourself ruminating over it for hours or even days? With the advent of International Women’s Day week this year, I pondered for a few days before writing this article. Why Women’s day? What makes a female a woman? I wrote an article on this subject a few years back, yet there is an ocean left. Here, a pour of information from it.
The male and female body shares a similar set of biological parts except for the reproductive organs. All the time the heart pumps blood in and out, the lungs inhale and exhale involuntarily. When these organs fail to function, we will be in grave trouble. Menstruation is something unique to females. Without it, it could potentially mean THE END of the human race. If you are confused, stay with me for the next couple of minutes to know-how.
A female body has the imperium to create, nurture, carry and protect another human inside them till that tiny creature is ready to absorb the outside world. She unlocks this ability when she gets her first period, mostly during her early teenage years.
The female reproductive system prepares her body once every month to become pregnant. Approximately once in 28 days, the ovaries (the part which produces eggs) release an egg. Before reaching the uterus, the egg travels through a tube. The uterus is another organ where the egg waits to get fertilised by a sperm. The uterus lining thickens with blood vessels and other nutrients during this time of the month so that this egg, if fertilised, could develop into a baby.
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If the egg does not inseminate in the next couple of weeks, the body will discard the egg as the woman is not pregnant. The thickened lining also serves no purpose at this point, so that will break. Hence, bleeding happens, and this whole process is called menstruation. The blood leaks for about 4–5 days; this is what we call PERIOD.
If all of this confuses you, let me explain again with a simple example. Assume that a female has her period on the first of every month and her menstrual cycle is also regular. The meeting of the egg and sperm (sex) should happen between the 13th to 23rd of the month. That will result in a high fertilisation rate. If the woman becomes pregnant, she will stop getting her periods until the baby’s delivery.
Imagine a few blood lining breaking inside the body every month; we are bleeding for 4–5 days that too, from our genitalia. And, this is not because of any illness. It is how the adult female body works. I can only imagine the physical pain it must cause. Coming from a country where menstruation holds a lot of stigmas even today, a girl is considered synonymous with impure during her menstrual cycle. Again, I can only imagine the mental pain from these remarks.
While all this is happening, I am amazed by how nature works. The woman’s body clock has an alarm feature that rings once a month to remind her to keep the human race alive. That is a vast contribution from women for all of us, going back for thousands of years.
Thank you, women, and Happy International Women’s Day to each of you. I present this piece of writing as a token of my respect.
I am not an expert in this subject. Apologies for misinterpretations, if any. Special thanks to the lady who made me aware of most of the things I wrote in this article. Without you (iykyk), this wouldn’t have existed ❤️
