Menstrual Hormones (Nursing)

00:00 Okay, so follicular phase is the 1st half of the menstrual cycle and that's the estrogens are produced by those maturing follicles and picture that graphic in your mind as those going across the top of the ovary. The luteal phase is the 2nd half of the menstrual cycle and that's when progesterone and estrogen are produced by the corpus luteum. Remember that's after the ovum has been released it starts turning into the corpus luteum. Okay then this is the review of our hormones again. This is the 1st half, same picture. We just want you to be really clear on this that the estrogen is higher in the 1st half then it drops off and the progesterone is higher in the 2nd half. So the menstrual hormones overall, there's a couple that we didn't talk about. Now we've got a super cool dry, therefore, of the anterior pituitary. Remember that is a master gland. It's really tiny but it's very bossy, kind of like a 3-year-old, they can run entire households with a single finger. The anterior pituitary puts out lots and lots of hormones but the 2 that we're going to focus on for menstrual hormones are FSH, which is the follicle stimulating hormone, that's the one that stimulates the follicles to grow in the ovaries. It also stimulates estrogen secretion from those follicles. LH is another hormone from the anterior pituitary, there was surge in LH causes what the egg to ovulate and that's what ends up helping us form the corpus luteum. So that's the role of FSH and LH. Now let's give a quick review again on estrogen and progesterone. Right? We know where those come from, it's from the ovaries. Estrogen's job is to thicken the uterine lining or the endometrium, it will inhibit FSH and LH for most of the cycle, and it stimulates FSH and LH release before the egg ovulates. Okay, so estrogen does some pretty cool things and now you can say why we needed to talk about FSH and LH. Now progesterone is what thickens the lining also the endometrium and it inhibits FSH and LH too.