What is normal for menstrual health?

First of all, it must be made clear that there is currently no unified quantitative scoring standard for "menstrual health" in clinical practice. What everyone often calls "normal" is a comprehensive judgment based on the menstrual cycle, menstrual period length, menstrual volume, and accompanying symptoms. As long as there are no organic diseases and it does not affect normal life and reproductive functions, it basically belongs to the health category. There is no need to impose the so-called self-assessment score line of 80 points or 90 points.

I spent more than half a year in a gynecology clinic, and I met dozens of girls who consulted with various online self-assessment forms. One girl who had just entered her third year was so anxious that her menstruation was disrupted because her self-assessment score was only 58. In fact, most of those self-assessment forms were compiled by private institutions, and there is no unified clinical basis for the scoring logic. To judge whether your condition is good or not, you must combine it with your own long-term patterns, and you cannot rigidly apply public standards. The reference range generally accepted by the academic community is that the cycle lasts 21-35 days, the menstrual period lasts 3-7 days, the menstrual volume is between 5-80ml, and there is no severe dysmenorrhea or other discomfort. If it can fall within this range, it can basically be considered as healthy. However, it does not mean that there must be problems if it exceeds a certain point. In the past two years, we participated in a follow-up study on the menstrual status of women of childbearing age. Among them, almost 12% of healthy women had cycles as short as 20 days or as long as 37 days. The shortest menstrual period was 2 days and the longest was 8 days, but ovulation and Hormone levels are all normal, and there are no gynecological diseases. Many obstetrics and gynecology experts now agree that as long as your menstrual cycle does not fluctuate for more than 7 days and your menstrual flow is stable for a long time, even if it is a little wider than the public reference value, it is not abnormal and belongs to your "exclusive normal rhythm."

Many people are confused about the concepts of 5ml and 80ml. In fact, 5ml is about 1/3 of the amount of ordinary daily sanitary napkins that are completely soaked. 80ml is about the amount of a 420mm night sanitary napkin that is completely soaked plus 2-3 daily sanitary napkins. If you change the night napkin every 1-2 hours and still leak, or the entire menstrual period ends with only two or three pads, then you really need to check whether there is an endocrine or endometrium problem. Last month, a 27-year-old girl came for a pre-pregnancy checkup and said that her self-tested menstrual health score was only 72 points. Because each cycle is 37 days, there will be some backache during menstruation. We were afraid that it would affect her pregnancy. We tested her ovulation and sex hormones for two months, and all indicators were fine. We told her that there was no need for intervention at all, and her own pattern was healthy. She also happily said that it was equivalent to having one less menstrual period per year than others, which was a profit.

There are also different views in the industry on whether menstrual discomfort is considered a health problem. Some doctors think that as long as you feel pain during menstruation, it means that prostaglandin secretion is abnormal, and it is best to adjust your diet and rest. Some doctors think that as long as the pain is so severe that you don’t need to take painkillers and it does not affect work and school, it is a normal physiological reaction. In fact, you don’t have to worry too much. If the pain is uncomfortable, just take an ibuprofen. There will be no dependence and it is much more comfortable than carrying it. Generally speaking, if you really want to rate your menstrual health, you don’t have to stick to the scoring standards on the Internet, and you don’t need to compare with others. As long as your menstruation is regular for a long time, there is no sudden increase or decrease in menstrual flow, and there is no pain that affects your normal life, you are basically in a healthy state. If you are really not sure, go to the hospital for a B-ultrasound and six hormone tests, which are more reliable than any self-test form.