Ep. 45: The Reproductive Continuum

Welcome back to the Woven Well Podcast! Today we’re talking about the Reproductive Continuum, and I wonder if you’ve heard of it before. Even though I’ve worked in this field for many years, it wasn’t until the last few years that I started hearing this term and I really appreciate it! It puts a name to physiological facts that greatly help us to understand our individual fertility and the overall fertility of women as a whole. 

If you’re familiar with a continuum, you know that it’s a sequence of things or events that have extreme ends but very similar points along the way. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the subtle differences from one point to the next until you discover you’re much further down the continuum, nearer to the extreme end, than you thought. 

The Reproductive Continuum is the story of a woman’s fertility throughout her life - the beginning, the end, and all the little shifting points along the way. 

We don’t have visual, but let’s imagine together a bell curve that starts low and flat, slowly rises higher and higher, and then slowly returns again to low and flat. With fertility, this bell curve has a starting point and an ending point. The ending is one we know well - or have at least heard about a lot - menopause. But the starting point may be earlier than you think. A woman’s fertility doesn’t begin with puberty, but with conception. Her conception, when her father’s sperm and mother’s egg met and all the tiny cells began dividing and multiplying, and eventually transforming into a liver, and fingertips, and millions and millions of reproductive eggs. 

A female is born with all the eggs she’ll ever have. Her body can’t create more during its lifetime. But that’s okay! Because by the time girls hit puberty, they still have hundreds of thousands of eggs ready for the possibility of ovulation. 

When the bell curve of our reproductive continuum really picks up is right before puberty, though. 

Fertility very gradually begins for women, starting around age 8-10 with a series of initial hormonal changes. She’s not ovulating or menstruating at this point, but her body is just beginning to create reproductive hormones, and we see this shift with the development of breast buds and the experience of light vaginal discharge, along other things. 

FSH, follicle stimulating hormone, and estrogen cause these shifts, but it’s not yet significant enough to cause ovulation. 

These hormones slowly continue to develop and strengthen over the next several years, until the point that estrogen levels are sufficient to trigger LH, or lutenizing hormone, the hormone that causes the egg to ovulate from the follicle. A week or so later, her first period arrives. 

What a time for girls. All of this time, that I just skimmed over in a few sentences, is a crazy roller coaster ride for most girls. They have new hormones that are all over the place as they try to regulate and strengthen - they have mood changes, body development, strange to them vaginal discharge and - they may be as young as 8 years old when they start these changes! 

Many of us remember it well. So let’s pause here to high five one another for surviving that season of life. And for you mothers of pre-pubescent daughters - high five to you, too. You’re surviving, as well! 

But doesn’t understanding what’s going on make such a difference? 

Being in the dark about what’s going on in your body - in the moment, and the direction it’s headed - can be downright scary. I think of all the women I’ve worked with over the years who remember their first period so well because they had never been told that women have periods. How terrifying that is. When it comes to fertility, education is a powerful and empowering tool. 

Those first few years of puberty can be all over the place. Cycles are irregular, bleeding may be spotty and unusual, and ovulation doesn’t occur each month like it will later. Cycles may be very long, or very short. The hormones are still figuring things out. Regulation and development take a while. It’s common for girls to experience defects in their luteal phase, or second half of their cycle, because the level of their progesterone hormone is consistently weak. They may experience cysts caused by LUF (or lutenized unruptured follicle) syndrome. Mood swings are still going strong though! And the production of cervical mucus is beginning and increasing in quality as her body gets used to producing larger amounts of estrogen. 

With all this rapid development happening, it can take a year or more for things to start getting normal. That means that if a girl has had periods for less than a year and some change, you shouldn’t be concerned about irregular cycles, or even some unusual spotting. These are to be expected during this phase of development. It’s totally normal! 

What’s not normal is pain of any kind. But if a girl starts experiencing pain, there’s a reason for it. And the answer isn’t birth control. I especially want to mention that because beginning birth control at such a young age can wreck havoc on the development of the girls reproductive hormones and reproductive organs that are still developing, like the cervix. 

So, she’s experiencing changes over the years, and rapidly approaching what she can expect to be her longest season of fertility - peak fertility. 

The majority of a woman’s reproductive life is spent in this season. The age it begins isn’t as important as its naturally following proper development during puberty. So if a child begins menstruating at 10, she’ll begin her peak fertility around age 11 or 12. If a teen begins menstruating at age 16, she’ll begin her peak fertility around age 17 or 18. 

And they’ll remain in this season for the next several decades. 

She’ll experience regular cycles, whether they’re shorter at 25 days long or longer at 36. 

She’ll experience consistent periods with at least one day of moderate or heavy bleeding. She’ll experience consistent cervical mucus production that leads up to ovulation, followed by a consistent luteal phase. 

This is what most fertility education tools use to explain a “standard” cycle. Not because there aren’t variations to be expected, but because most women are in this peak fertility stage for the majority of their charting years. 

Most of our listeners will be in this season. It’s during this peak season that women have the highest possibility of pregnancy, because they are producing well developed hormones and consistently ovulating. Meaning, overall, this is the most fertile season of a woman’s life. 

This is when women are most interested in things like conceiving a pregnancy and preparing their body for pregnancy, or using this information to avoid a pregnancy because they know they are fertile, or really identifying cycle health concerns. Because they know it’s not related to reproductive development, like earlier in their life. Now, it’s an ongoing issue with a root cause that can be investigated. 

We do all of that and more at Woven Natural Fertility Care. We teach you to chart your cycles to identify those windows of fertility and infertility, and to identify underlying hormonal issues that could be causing irregular cycles, unusual bleeding, or issues conceiving — all issues that are completely normal as a woman’s fertility is developing, but very abnormal once it has developed. 

And knowing this makes a huge difference, because women don’t stay in this season forever. It may feel like it for those desperately trying to avoid pregnancy, or who suffer from debilitating menstrual cramps. But fertility comes to an end for every woman. 

Around 37-42, women can begin seeing signs of decline in their fertility. Let me be clear on this: it does not mean they are now infertile. 

I work with women actively conceiving pregnancies in their late 30s and early 40s all the time. And I have clients in their late 40s and early 50s! But they all happen to be avoiding pregnancy. Fertility does not suddenly stop because a woman hits a certain birthday. 

Just like it took many years for fertility to fully develop, fertility takes many years to cease. 

Think back to the bell curve. After you’ve reached the highest point, things don’t just plummet - they slowly trend lower and lower until things naturally cease. 

This process can start as early as age 37 or as late as the early 50s. And again, it can take many years for fertility to naturally cease - I’m talking 5, 7, maybe even 10 years before it completely stops. 

But women can notice signs that this process has begun, however slowly. They may notice a significant drop in their body’s ability to produce progesterone, which causes a short luteal phase or spotting before the start of their period. They may have more irregular cycles, because ovulation is no longer happening during every cycle. They may experience LUF syndrome, or simply very long cycles as the body has a harder time increasing hormones to a sufficient level to ovulate. Or she could have very short cycles, with an early ovulation during her period and then a short luteal phase due to low progesterone, and feel like she’s bleeding every other week.

These are all things that can pop up while a woman is in her peak season of fertility, but those are all red flags that there’s an unusual hormonal issue happening. When these occur during pre-menopause, they are a normal part of the slow transition. And notice how similar they are to what young women experience as their bodies work to begin to ovulate and menstruate, and make their way toward peak fertility. These changes - either to or from peak fertility - can be very similar. 

That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing that can be done to help pre-menopausal women, though. This is when charting your cycles becomes amazingly helpful. I love working with women approaching pre-menopause, because her chart will give her very clear signs about when it begins and how quickly or slowly its progressing. 

For a season that often leaves women feeling like they’re completely in the dark, charting is a powerful flashlight. 

And our Napro medical professionals are trained in how to help women transition well. Women are not left to fend for themselves, nor are they stuck with the hormonal treatments of the last several decades. 

Eventually, hormones will decrease to the point that they are no longer sufficient to trigger ovulation consistently. And when a woman has gone one year without ovulating and menstruating, we say that she’s now officially menopausal. Entering menopause means a woman has experienced a natural maturation of her fertility, and that season of her life is complete. 

When I talk with younger women, this is an event they sorta dread. It feels shrouded in mystery, so unknown and scary, and something they’re sure they’ll mourn. And that may be true! 

But I do want to throw out there that every woman whom I’ve walked through menopause has been more than ready to see that season of life finish. 

There is something to enjoying each season we’re in, and living into it fully. 

So where do you find yourself on this reproductive continuum? Are you in that season of development, with unpredictable periods, lots of vaginal discharge, and questions about when your next cycle will begin? Or are you navigating peak fertility in your life, whether that’s smooth sailing or troubled by cycle issues? Or do you suspect you’ve entered into that pre-menopausal season and your fertility is slowly changing once again? What does it look like for you to fully live into the season of fertility you’re living in now? And what are you doing to help you understand the unique phase of fertility you’re in at the moment? 

If you want to further explore your reproductive stage and health, I truly believe the best way to get started is through learning the Creighton system to understand your health and your fertility. We offer an online, group Introductory Session each month, and we’d love for you to attend. It doesn’t commit you to anything, but allows you to learn more about how your body works, how the Creighton system works, and how to begin charting, if you’re interested in doing so. You can register for our next Intro Session at wovenfertility.com/join-us. 

A woman’s fertility is a beautiful thing. These changes are natural and beneficial. I hope this episode has helped you pinpoint where you may be, in order to understand and appreciate it all the better. 

As always, thanks for listening as we continue to explore together what it means to be woven well.