GIRL TALK

What’s Going On Inside?

A girl’s first period, called menarche (say: MEH-nar-kee), signals that she is growing up and her body is preparing so that she might have a baby someday. A period is the 2 to 7 days that a girl or woman experiences menstrual flow — blood and tissue that leaves the body through the vagina.

For most girls, it amounts to about 2 tablespoons (30 milliliters). To catch the blood and prevent stains on her clothes, a girl can wear a pad, which sticks to her underwear, or a tampon, which is inserted into the vagina.

The blood and tissue leaves the body because it’s no longer needed. It comes from the uterus, the organ inside a woman’s body where a baby grows. Each month, blood and tissue build up in the uterus in case the woman becomes pregnant. That lining would be needed if the woman’s egg was fertilized by a man’s sperm cell. A fertilized egg attaches to that cushiony lining and begins growing into a baby.

But most of the time, the egg does not get fertilized, the lining is shed, and the girl or woman has her period.

Let’s talk for a minute about eggs. They’re not the kind you buy in a carton at the store! Girls and women have two ovaries. Each of these ovaries holds thousands of eggs, which are tiny (each no bigger than the tip of a pin). During the menstrual cycle, an egg is released from one of the ovaries and begins a trip down one of the fallopian (say: fuh-LO-pee-un) tubes to the uterus, also called the womb.

If a sperm cell does not fertilize the egg, the unfertilized egg and the lining from the uterus leave the body. In other words, a girl has her period.

The cycle then begins again. The lining of the uterus will start building up, and about 2 weeks after the last period, another egg will be released.

What’s a Cycle? ♦

When people talk about the menstrual (say: MEN-strul) cycle, they usually mean the days when blood and tissue (menstrual fluid) leaves the body through the vagina. That’s the most visible part of the process, and the part that girls and women need to manage.

But the monthly cycle is exactly that — a process that takes about a month. A normal menstrual cycle for girls and teens ranges from 21 to 45 days. At most, only a week of the cycle involves menstrual fluid exiting the body. A normal period lasts from 2 to 7 days.

The rest of the time, the girl doesn’t have any bleeding but other stuff is happening, like the lining building up and the egg being released.

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