Prophylaxis (prevention) | Menstrual disorders

Prophylaxis (prevention)

Since a physiological course of the menstrual cycle is predominantly dependent on hormones and a disturbance of the hormonal balance can lead to menstrual disorders, factors that disturb the hormonal balance should be prevented. These include stress, unhealthy nutrition, smoking, insufficient physical activity, insufficient and irregular sleep. Normal menstrual bleeding is called eumenorrhea and has a cycle of 25 to 31 days.

During the cycle, menstrual bleeding lasts about 3 to 6 days and the amount of bleeding is about 50 to 150 ml per day. Menorrhagia and brachymenorrhea are considered to be disorders of the bleeding duration. Menorrhagia refers to prolonged menstrual bleeding.

The menstrual cycle remains the same, but the bleeding lasts longer than seven days. The intensity of bleeding is also increased. Brachymenorrhea is the shortened menstrual period.

It means that the bleeding lasts only hours to 2.5 hours. The intensity of bleeding is normal to reduced. Hypermenorrhea and hypomenorrhea are considered to be disorders of bleeding strength (type anomaly).

Excessive menstrual bleeding is called hypermenorrhea. The menstrual cycle and bleeding duration remain the same, with a bleeding intensity of more than 150 ml per day. With hypomenorrhea, weak bleeding occurs.

Here too, the cycle and bleeding duration remain the same. However, the intensity of bleeding is less than 50 ml per day. Disturbances in bleeding frequency (tempo anomalies) include polymenorrhea and oligomenorrhea.

Polymenorrhoea refers to irregular or often shortened menstrual cycles. The bleeding duration remains the same, but the menstrual cycle is less than 25 days and the bleeding intensity is increased, normal or decreased. Occasionally there are two menstrual periods per month.

In oligomenorrhea, the menstrual cycle is greatly prolonged (>35 days). The bleeding duration remains the same and the bleeding intensity is also increased, normal or decreased. Additional bleeding, such as metrorrhagia and post-coital bleeding, also count as menstrual disorders.

In these cases, bleeding outside of the menstrual period occurs during the course of the cycle. In metrorrhagia (spotting), additional spotting occurs either one or two days before or after menstruation. The intensity of bleeding is low.

In post-coital bleeding, bleeding occurs after sexual intercourse. Another menstrual disorder is amenorrhea, where menstruation stops completely. Here we distinguish between primary and secondary amenorrhea.

In primary amenorrhea, it is the case that a girl has still not started menstruating in the course of her 16th year. And in secondary amenorrhea, the menstrual period does not occur for more than three months, although a normal menstrual cycle has already begun.