Menstruation for boys

Menstruation is a normal and essential part of a woman's reproductive cycle. It allows for the possibility of pregnancy and the continuation of the human race. Menstruation should not be made fun of or seen as a sickness, as it is a natural process. It is important to understand and respect the personal nature of menstruation for women. Menstrual cycles can vary in terms of regularity and discomfort, but most women can continue with their normal activities during this time. In some cases, severe menstrual cramps may require medical attention. Personal hygiene should be considered during menstruation, and it is important to respect a woman's decision to not participate in certain activities during this time. For young boys, it is important to understand that menstruation is a significant factor in considering marriage and starting a family. The menstrual cycle involves the release of an egg from the ovary and the preparation of the uterus for pregnancy. If the egg is not fertilized, the In this discussion, I should like to talk to you fellas about something that perhaps you wouldn't feel should be a part of our discussion each time with you, and that's menstruation. However, it is extremely important to you because if there were not menstruation, you wouldn't be alive, I wouldn't be alive, and as a matter of fact, we'd have no human race. So that we would like to talk about it from the medical standpoint to show you just what happens in menstruation and make you better understand the fact that when the girl is experiencing a menstrual cycle, she is not sick. First of all, let's look at what menstruation means as it relates to us. We have a need for air. This need for air is satisfied by what we call respiration, so that as the body requires oxygen, we inhale air and this air comes into the lungs, exchanges within the lungs the oxygen right at the bloodstream level, and picks up carbon dioxide, which is a waste product, and then we exhale that. If we didn't have the respiration, we would die. We would literally suffocate. Secondly, we must have food in order to maintain ourselves, so we eat certain kinds of food. Well, the use of food involves a number of things. It involves the chewing or so-called mastication of food, and this food then is put into the stomach where certain digestive juices will work it over and get it set for digestion, and then it goes on into the small intestines and so on. During the course of this, the food is broken into simpler particles and it is then absorbed or picked up by the bloodstream, just as the oxygen is picked up by the bloodstream. Thus, we must have food in order to live. If we don't have food, we die. The same is true of fluid, as you know. So, with both of these, we have the food and we have the oxygen. How do we get it around? Well, here we must have circulation, so that the circulation includes a pump, which is the heart, and a blood vessel series, which will take all of this food out to the various tissues of the body, plus another blood vessel series to bring the waste products back to the heart. And this entire pattern of circulation is absolutely essential if we're going to live, so that circulation is necessary. If anything impairs it, then that portion of the body is no longer going to be viable or livable. It will certainly die. With this, we must consider, too, that excretion is absolutely necessary. If we did not have the blood circulating through the kidneys, for example, where the waste products are removed from the bloodstream, we would have a backing up of waste products, and finally we would die of uremia, u-r-e-m-i-a. Uremia is nothing more than the backing up of the waste products that were supposed to go out through the kidneys. So, if we didn't have the kidneys and we didn't have this so-called excretory process, we would die. Now, how does this apply to menstruation? Very simply, if the girls did not have the menstrual cycle, if the women did not bear the child, we would therefore have no race. You would be gone, I would be gone, the whole human race would be gone because of the fact that we didn't have menstruation. It's very important to us, isn't it, therefore? So, it's nothing to be made fun of, and without question there should be no light and flip attitude toward it, and we should look at it as something very worthwhile. Now, as the girls have their menstrual cycles, some make quite an issue of it, and we think this is wrong, and we've told the girls this, for the same reason I've just told you. It is a normal physiological function which is absolutely essential for the maintenance of the human race. It's the only way in which we can have children. If we didn't have the menstrual cycle, we could not have children, so that the girl who feels that this is something hush-hush is literally being hush-hush about the human race and about having a family. Conversely, and this is extremely important, the menstrual cycle of the girl is absolutely her own personal business and nobody else's. All you need know is that all women must have menstrual cycles and that the menstrual cycle is important not only to them but to you. If they find themselves a little brittle, perhaps a little snappy, a little bit irritable, this occasionally occurs when a girl is going through the menstrual cycle. It sometimes occurs as a result of the fact that she has cramps. Well, have you ever stopped to think of the times that you've had stomach cramps and how irritable and brittle you've been just from perhaps drinking some ice water after athletics or having eaten the wrong food with some greasy spoon or something of this nature? You'll know that it doesn't feel very comfortable and you were brittle, so let's not make an issue of this. Also, we would recognize this point that many women have told their daughters, you're in your sick time. This is not true. The girl who has the menstrual cycle is not sick. She's no more sick than you nor I because it is a normal physiological function. She may be uncomfortable and she may be having some difficulty, but it's not a sick time. It is a normal time. It's a part of everyday life. It's something that the girl will go through from the time that she gets into the childbearing age until she stops, which arbitrarily is from about 11 or 12 years of age up to around 45 years of age, so that all through those years the menstrual cycle is absolutely imperative and is not a sick time. The girls who have menstrual periods very often will miss a period. This is very common at this age level. The age that you are right now, very commonly the girls can go all summer without a period. Very commonly they may find that they are irregular. This is true as one grows older, and the only reason I bring this up to you is for you to recognize that when you get married you will have this kind of thing to consider with your wife, that is, regularity or irregularity, the missing of periods, the length of periods, the difficulty or lack of difficulty which may be had by the girl. We feel, medicine recommends, that most girls continue in full activity during the time that they're having their menstrual cycle. There's a good reason for it from the physiological standpoint, and it helps them clear themselves up. In addition, if they are emotionally keyed, it will often, by reason of being physically active, make them take their minds off themselves, and therefore it will clear up. In some instances, and this is a very small percentage, less than about one-eighth, a girl may have a menstrual cramp that is so severe that she must go to bed or take medications, or she may have to go to see a doctor about it. Occasionally there is something that must be done. These are rare birds, and are not the ones of which I speak, but I want you to know that it can occur. Now, from the standpoint of a girl maintaining herself in activity, you may find some girls will break a date, or some will not go to a dance, or some will not go swimming, or some will not go horseback riding, or whatever the case may be. Part of this is personal to her, and the one feature that we suggest is that personal hygiene be considered, so that you should never, if a girl refuses you during what obviously is the menstrual period, make any issue of the fact that she is not participating. If she doesn't want to, it's her business and not yours. The only thing that is your business is to remember that the menstrual cycle is something that occurs in all girls, and it's something that is very important for you for the years to come. Now, from the standpoint of the menstrual cycle as it applies to you boys at this age, we must think now of the fact that marriage is on the minds of the girls that are in your class. They are currently looking with a thought of marriage at the time that seems just best, and marriage, of course, involves many factors. It's an entirely different topic. However, it does include these points. It does include whether you are adequately prepared mentally. In other words, can you go out and make a living with what preparation you have? Are you adequately prepared emotionally? Can you leave your family to start a new family? Are you adequately prepared physically? Is there anything wrong about either one of you which might interfere with a happy married life? All of these things, together with the one that is extremely important in society, and that is, can you afford it financially? So these all enter into whether or not you're going to be married. The menstrual cycle is just one part of this, and the menstrual cycle, therefore, must be considered as a significant phase of pregnancy, which is marriage and the family growth. Now, what happens during the period of the menstrual cycle in the girl? It's a very simple pattern, and the way the good Lord has put us together is this. He has developed within the girl, in the pelvis, P-E-L-V-I-S, which is the hip portion of the body, what is known as the uterus, U-T-E-R-U-S, and this uterus is known as a womb. It's a rather pear-shaped organ and has an interior to it, a kind of a vault, and from this, at the top of it, there are two little tubes which lead, one to the right and one to the left, known as the fallopian tubes, F-A-Double-L-O-P-I-A-N, fallopian tubes, and they go over to what is known as the ovary, O-V-A-R-Y, and each ovary, one on each side, has a number of eggs in it. Once a month, the ovary lets loose one egg or one ovum, and this ovum goes down through this tube, the fallopian tube, to the uterus itself, or the womb. Within the uterus during this time, there has been a building up of a bed for what would be the beginning of a child or pregnancy, and this bed is prepared, therefore, to feed the fertilized ovum or egg. Now, if the egg is not fertilized, then the egg will die and this lining will necessarily have to slough off, and the removal of the lining is very much like the removal of an accumulation of blood in the nose. If you have it bleeding in the nose, you must do something about protecting it so as not to get it over your face or clothes. So, too, must girls wear protection, and therefore, at the time that the girl has her menstrual cycle, this is the reason for the protection, and when it does occur, it is a signal that the balance of hormones has changed. At your age right now, most of you are nearing the end of your growth period. Most of you are getting pretty close to the balance of the so-called male and female hormones, and at the same time, your metabolism rate is coming to the point where it will be balanced. From childhood through puberty to the adulthood, we must have a change of balance of the growth hormone. We must have a change of balance of the metabolism or thyroid hormone. We must have a balance and a change of balance of both the male and the female hormone, and so, therefore, if there is no fertilization of the ovum, the balance of the female hormone changes itself, and there is then the discharge. This period comes once a month. However, this month is not just once every 28 or 30 days. It can vary with each girl. The length of time that it lasts can vary with each girl, and there are only about 48 hours out of the entire period in which a girl can conceive. However, this is something that the doctor and the girl together must decide because there is no set rule for it. Thus, we suggest that all girls maintain a calendar showing their periods so that when it comes to marriage, they can sit down with the doctor and show them this calendar as to when the periods were. Therefore, the doctor can work with them as to how they are going to enter into one-fourth of the factors that I mentioned to you about marriage. Remember I said, are you mentally prepared? Are you emotionally prepared? Are you physically prepared? This is the physically prepared aspect of it, and then, of course, finally, the financially, which we've mentioned. Now, from the standpoint of a family, you must remember that the one aspect of the girl that is totally different from the boy is that she carries the child, and therefore, sometimes at your age, you're going to think about the fact that marriage just isn't soon enough for me. We cannot get married for another two or three years. Perhaps because I have such deep feelings, we should become somewhat involved with one another. This, and we are not moralizing, this is decidedly wrong to do medically speaking. When it comes to the moral aspect, that's something else that you will talk about with other people, but when it comes to medicine, let me point out these things, that if you do a period of exploration with a girl, there is a chance, first of all, that this girl could develop an infection. Secondly, there is a chance that this girl could go to the point where she could no longer, when she did get married, have children. Thirdly, there is a chance that this girl could, without desiring to have the beginning of a family, and therefore, when it comes to looking at it medically, these three things are extremely important to the doctor, with one more important feature, and that is the emotional upheaval, the emotional loss that goes with this thing occurring. So we look to it this way for you boys to consider right now. There is nothing humorous about this when you look to this point, that we must have digestion, we must have circulation, we must have respiration, we must have excretion. Above all, we must have menstruation in the girl, in the woman, because if we didn't have the menstruation, we would not be able to conceive the family, the family which is absolutely essential to maintain the human race, on the one hand, to give you the unit, which is the most desirable unit for life, the factor that keeps you together, that keeps you happy, which keeps you in the point of having accomplishment, which gives you the drive and the desire, the need for carrying on in this world, and this means, therefore, to have a family, there is only one time that it should occur, and that is when you are married, when you can have the happiness, the desire, and the forward look that came just as it came when your family brought you into this world.