Female hormones change throughout life, causing symptoms such as hot flashes and infertility. Hormone replacement therapy can alleviate these symptoms, and synthetic hormones can prevent pregnancy. Hormones affect infants and puberty, and pregnancy hormones increase blood supply and relax uterine muscles. Menopause causes bone and heart problems, headaches, fatigue, and low libido.
Levels of female hormones change dramatically with age. Hormones are usually present at birth, increase during puberty and pregnancy, and then decrease as women approach menopause. The results of decreased hormone levels include both infertility and unpleasant symptoms such as hot flashes and headaches. Therefore, many older women seek to replace the fading hormones with manufactured replacements for estrogen and progesterone, which can also be used in different forms to prevent pregnancy throughout their childbearing years.
Female hormones are present from birth, causing some boys or girls to enlarge their breasts during infancy. This may be a result of estrogen being passed from the mother to the baby across the placenta, or it could be caused by the baby’s body producing prolactin in response to the sudden drop of estrogen from her body once the umbilical cord is cut. Some little girls experience occasional breast augmentation for the first two years of life, demonstrating that hormones affect their life early on.
During puberty, the hypothalamus produces gonadotropin-releasing hormone, which in turn signals the pituitary gland to release more hormones. These include luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), both of which stimulate the ovaries to produce additional hormones. The best-known female hormones produced by the ovaries are estrogen and progesterone, which help LH and FSH regulate the menstrual cycle. These hormones raise estrogen levels just before ovulation and then raise progesterone levels for about two weeks afterward. When the released egg is not fertilized, the progesterone level drops which causes the uterine lining to begin to shed in what is called menstruation.
Pregnancy and female hormones go hand in hand, as the lack of the usual progesterone drop does not occur when a woman becomes pregnant, which is why her period never shows up during that cycle. Instead, human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) signals the ovaries to make more progesterone and estrogen, although the placenta usually takes over this task just before the second trimester. The results of higher levels of these female hormones are increased blood supply, a thicker uterine lining, and uterine muscles that are relaxed enough to grow with the unborn baby. While prolactin rises to produce breast milk just before the baby is born, estrogen and progesterone levels drop suddenly after delivery, sometimes resulting in postpartum depression. These female hormones begin to decline even more as menopause approaches.
Falling estrogen levels during menopause can cause bone and heart problems, such as osteoporosis and heart disease. Night sweats, hot flashes, and vaginal dryness are also common symptoms of a loss of this sex hormone. Headaches and fatigue may also occur, leading to discomfort during menopause. On the other hand, lower progesterone levels lead to infertility, vaginal dryness and low libido. Weight gain, depression, and bloating are all additional consequences of the reduced progesterone levels that accompany menopause.
For these reasons, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is often used by older women who dislike the effects of low levels of female hormones. HRT usually comes as a pill or patch that is placed on the body and can reduce symptoms such as hot flushes and night sweats. Before menopause, some women use synthetic hormones to prevent pregnancy because the excess estrogen in many types of contraceptives can prevent ovulation. The progesterone that comes in many forms of birth control can thicken cervical mucus to make it difficult for sperm to get to the cervix, and it can also make the uterine lining too thin for an embryo to implant.
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