Repetition of Menstrual Cycle (Nursing)

00:00 Hi. Welcome to our video on Women's Health. Now we're going to talk about the non-contraception uses of estrogen and progesterone. So we're not going to talk about how we use those to prevent getting pregnant, we're going to talk about all the other uses of estrogen and progesterone. Okay, so let's start with a quick review. We have the super cool graphic here for you of an ovary. You can see the developing follicle, the release of the egg, the corpus luteum, the corpus albicans all right there. Remember in a woman's cycle, we are going to break it down to about 4 weeks.

00:34 The 1st half is the follicular phase, the 2nd half is the luteal phase. The important thing is to know that estradiol is the main endogenous estrogen. Right? So it's higher in the 1st half of the follicular phase and then it drops off after ovulation and progesterone is higher than estrogen in the 2nd half. Now both estradiol, remember that's endogenous estrogen, and progesterone are produced by the ovaries and they cause big time changes in your uterus. So the follicular phase is the 1st half of the menstrual cycle, the luteal phase is the 2nd half of the menstrual cycle. Now when we talk about menstrual hormones, we've already introduced at the bottom there you see estrogen and progesterone and we talked about those in details in our other videos.

01:23 But I want to hit FSH and LH just to touch on those again because we put 4 of the most important menstrual hormones right there together in this chart for you so you have them all in one place. FSH and LH come from the anterior pituitary and you'll see that picture of the anterior pituitary right there. Now follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone play important roles in the monthly menstrual cycle. FSH stimulates that follicle to grow inside the ovary and it also stimulates estrogen secretion. LH surge causes the ovulation and that's what helps us also with the formation of the corpus luteum, the one that ends up making all that progesterone later on in the 2nd half of the cycle. So, estrogen thickens the uterine lining in the endometrium and it inhibits FSH and LH for most of the cycle and it also stimulates FSH and LH release right before ovulation. Progesterone also impacts the uterine lining, the endometrium, and it inhibits FSH and LH. Remember, that level is higher in the 2nd half of the cycle. Okay, so we've gave you a quick review of things that we go into a lot more detail in other video series.