Why do Women have Period?

Care to learn about why women go through this process every month? Menstruation is a rare biological process shared by a handful of species on Earth. Did you know that monkeys, apes, bats, and humans are the only mammals that menstruate. We menstruate more than any other animal, even though it's a waste of resources and can be inconvenient. This process is used to create an internal haven for a mother to nurture her growing child during pregnancy - which is amazing in itself, but only half the story. The other half of the story reveals that this process places a mother and her child at odds.

As for all living creatures, the human body evolved to promote the spread of its genes. For the mother, that means she should try to provide equally for all her offspring. But a mother and her fetus don't share exactly the same genes. The fetus inherits genes from its father, as well, and those genes can promote their own survival by extracting more than their fair share of resources from the mother. So, this evolutionary

So, this evolutionary conflict of interests places a woman and her unborn child in a biological tug-of-war that plays out inside the womb. One factor contributing to this internal tussle is the placenta, the fetal organ that connects to the mother's blood supply and nourishes the fetus while it grows. In most mammals, the placenta is confined behind a barrier of maternal cells.

Some people think that the placenta permits the mother to control the flow of nutrients to the fetus. But this isn't true in all species- in humans and a few others, the placenta actually enters into the mother's circulatory system and directly accesses her blood stream. This way, the fetus pumps her arteries with hormones that keep them open so she can get a steady supply of nutrients through her bloodstream.

With such unfettered access, a fetus can produce hormones that elevate the mother's blood pressure, widen her arteries, and raise her blood sugar. Most mothers of mammals can expel or reabsorb embryos if necessary, but in humans, disconnecting the blood supply of the fetus after it is linked might cause hemorrhage. The mother's health is in jeopardy if the fetus fails to develop normally or dies. A fetus's constant need for resources as it develops can result in serious exhaustion, high blood pressure, and diseases including diabetes and preeclampsia. Pregnancy is always a significant financial and occasionally deadly investment because of these dangers.

Therefore, it makes sense that the body would thoroughly examine embryos to determine which ones were worth the effort. Here's where menstruation comes into play. The embryo embeds itself in the endometrium that lines the uterus during a process known as implantation that initiates pregnancy.

Only healthy embryos might survive because the endometrium evolved to make implantation challenging. But in doing so, it also favored the embryos that invaded the environment the most forcefully, triggering an evolutionary feedback cycle. An intricate, perfectly timed hormonal conversation between the embryo and endometrium changes it to enable implantation. What transpires if an embryo fails the evaluation? It may still be able to adhere or even penetrate the endometrial partially. It might abandon its mother as it slowly deteriorates.

The body just eliminates all potential risks to avert this issue. The womb eliminates its endometrial lining as well as any unfertilized eggs, ill, dying, or dead embryos whenever ovulation does not lead to a healthy pregnancy. Menstruation, which precedes the period, is the name for that protective process. Despite how strange it may seem, this biological characteristic puts the human species on a sustainable path.