Q & A: Why is my daughter’s period so inconsistent?
I was asked a question recently: Why is my daughter’s period so inconsistent? It started a year or so ago and seemed to come sort of regularly and then skipped a few months before coming again.
Great question! I wanted to share my answer in this email.
Well done knowing when you expected her next period to come. Keeping track of menstrual cycles is helpful for so many reasons, including so you can predict periods.
While everyone has a unique cycle experience, I want to share three common reasons why your tweens and teens might have irregular or unpredictable periods:
It takes time for menstrual cycles to become regular. Healthy menstrual cycles are the result of a hormonal conversation between your daughter’s brain and ovaries. The brain initiates the cycle, ovaries respond, then the brain responds, and then ovaries respond again. It takes time for her body to learn this call and response song, for key hormones to learn to work in concert with each other.
Because the brain initiates this cycle, it’s vulnerable to stress. Stress, whether it’s acute stress (like a flu or an argument with friends) or chronic stress (like instability at home or bullying at school) can cause the brain to delay launching a menstrual cycle making the time between periods longer than you might have expected.
Reproductive hormones need nutrition in order to do their job. If your daughter isn’t getting enough nutrient dense foods or is restricting her calories, her menstrual cycle can become irregular or stop altogether.
If this Q & A sparks a follow up question or you want to learn more about how your body works and how to manage common complains like period pain and irregular and unpredictable periods, book a personal consultation.
