Ovulation: what is it in simple words and when it happens

The reproductive period takes up almost half of a woman's life. It lasts on average from 11-12 years old, when a teenage girl has her first menstruation, to 48-50 years old, when menopause is established. And all this time, the body patiently, from month to month, is preparing to accept and nurture the future new person.

“Getting” more and more follicles from the reserves of the ovaries, the woman’s body releases eggs from them. This process is called ovulation. Let's take a closer look at some points.

What is ovulation in girls

Ovulation occurs once a month for each female if she:

• not pregnant;
• not breastfeeding;
• has no problems with hormones;
• not taking birth control pills.

Perhaps the wording of the question is a bit incorrect - ovulation occurs not only in young girls, but also in mature women, until the menopause period begins. What is ovulation and when does it occur is a question to which a gynecologist or gynecologist-endocrinologist will give the clearest and most detailed answer. How does it manifest itself?

If you slightly touch the field of biology, then in general the process looks like this.

What many see as a kind of ending menstrual cycle- regular bleeding - in fact, his beginning of the ovulatory cycle. On the day when bloody discharge appears on the pad, indicating the rejection of the “extra” layer of the endometrium, several small, so-called antral, follicles begin to slowly mature. Their stock in the body of a newborn girl approaches a million, but steadily decreases over the course of her life. Most follicles do not reach the stage of maturity. Starting to grow on the first day of a new cycle, they undergo atresia and resolve, with the exception of 1 or 2.

Approximately on day 8-9, ultrasound already shows 5-10 antral follicles in each ovary. By the same moment, the dominant, that is, the largest, is determined. It is he who is destined to break on the 12-14th day of the cycle, release an egg and turn into. The process of formation and release of an egg is called ovulation.

This is the most favorable time for, dangerous for those who do not plan to increase their families, and favorable for those who want to become parents.

Early ovulation occurs on the 11-12th day of the cycle. comes to 19-20 day. Both cases are not something different from the norm, because many factors affect the menstrual cycle of women:

• changing of the living place;
• stress;
• any disease;
• taking medications;

Sometimes ovulation in these terms constantly occurs in a woman. If at the same time fertility is preserved, there are no diseases of a hormonal nature or the genital area, then there is no need to worry: it means that this is the individual norm for this woman.

ovulation day

The day of ovulation is "Day X", which becomes the starting point for a new life, if it is destined to arise.

In adolescent girls, ovulation cycles are not established immediately. If menstruation began early, around age 11, the entire first year may consist of anovulatory cycles. This should not cause concern: the “dance” of hormones has not subsided yet, the body has not adjusted the mechanism by which it will work properly until menopause.

However, this does not mean that young girls should not worry about the need for contraception: ovulation can happen any month. Not always (especially at first) and not every girl will be able to feel features ovulation: it does not manifest itself in any way, because this is not a disease, but a natural process, and it can often be tracked only by ultrasound and by jumps basal body temperature. But more on that later.

Gynecologists achieve ovulation stimulation by injecting drugs. hCG acts, which is administered intramuscularly when the follicle has already become dominant, but has not yet reached its maximum. This gives an impulse to the oocyte to mature and break away from the wall of the ovarian follicle. After an injection of hCG, ovulation occurs in about 36-48 hours.

Such an injection can be given to the patient before, so as not to miss the time most suitable for the introduction of the husband's or donor's sperm.

Ovulation in women is the short period of the menstrual cycle when the possibility is at its highest. A newborn girl already has about one million germ cells in her ovaries. After puberty, she releases one or two eggs every month. On short term they become ready for fertilization. It is the period when a mature egg is released into the fallopian tubes, called ovulation. Only from this moment is it possible to conceive a child.

As a rule, ovulation in women is accompanied by the maturation of only one egg, but there are exceptions. With excessive production of hormones in one period of the menstrual cycle, one germ cell can be produced in each ovary. Both eggs are healthy and can be fertilized. If this happens, then twins or even triplets are born. But the genotype in newborns, unlike twins, will be completely different.

After menopause, as well as during the period of bearing a child, ovulation in women stops. After pregnancy, it returns to the usual pace. But it is noticed that after childbirth or abortion, the rhythm of ovulation changes. The same happens after 45 years, when the female body begins to prepare for the onset of menopause.

So, in women? It is generally accepted that this happens on the 14th day from the beginning of the menstrual cycle. But still this phenomenon is exclusively individual and is determined by the peculiarities of the work of the organism. Ovulation may occur a few days earlier if a woman's cycle is short. It happens that the egg is released on the 18-19th day with a longer cycle.

Ovulation in women is calculated in several ways. The most popular method is calendar. To determine the most favorable for it is necessary to regularly mark the beginning and end of menstruation for 4-5 months. So you can set the average duration of your cycle. If it is 28 days, then the appropriate day for conceiving a child is the 14th. It is much more difficult when the cycle is irregular. Then this method becomes inefficient.

In fact, the moment when a woman ovulates does not go unnoticed. There are a number of signs by which it is easy to recognize. You need to focus on your own feelings. So, the body can signal both the release of the egg into the fallopian tubes and the completion of ovulation. If you carefully follow the changes in the body, you can calculate these moments. Most women note that the amount and consistency of the secreted mucus changes. She is getting bigger. In color and composition, it resembles egg white. The moment of ovulation is determined by measuring the basal temperature. Its increase is associated with the production of the hormone progesterone, which is responsible for maintaining pregnancy in the early stages. Symptoms of the body's readiness for conception can be pain in the chest, lower abdomen and lower back. These sensations are caused by the process of release of the egg. Pain can last from several hours to 2-3 days.

You need to get familiar with your physiology. This knowledge will help you reach your goal faster. The term "ovulation" in this case is key. It is he who underlies the process of conception.

What is ovulation in women?

A certain period of life, when a woman is ready to conceive, bear and give birth to a child, is called childbearing age. This period begins in girls at an early age, with the advent of the first menstruation (menarche) and lasts an average of 25–30 years.

The processes taking place in female body during the menstrual cycle is the monthly preparing for a potential pregnancy.

Under the influence of hormones, changes occur in the reproductive organs at different periods of the menstrual cycle. Depending on these processes, the menstrual cycle :

• . The beginning of the menstrual cycle and the follicular phase is the 1st day of menstruation. Under the influence of hormones (estrogens), follicles grow in the ovaries. Inside each of them is an egg. Among them is defined leading follicle. It is from it that the egg will eventually come out. Also during this period, the mucous membrane of the uterus thickens. The duration of the follicular phase is individual and ranges from 7 to 22 days.
• ovulatory. When estrogen levels reach their peak, the pituitary gland begins to produce luteinizing hormone (LH). When the LH level reaches its maximum level the follicle bursts and a mature egg is released, which begins to move through the fallopian tubes towards the uterus. This is ovulation.

Ovulation represents the release of a mature egg, ready for fertilization. If a spermatozoon meets on the way of the egg, then conception occurs.

• luteal. After the follicle has released an egg, a corpus luteum forms in its place, which begins to produce the hormone progesterone. Under its influence, the uterine mucosa changes its structure: it becomes loose and edematous. These are favorable conditions for fixing a fertilized egg.

If conception does not occur, then the corpus luteum dies, the level of hormones decreases and rejection of the inner layer of the uterus (menstruation) occurs. Menstrual cycle starts over. The duration of the luteal phase, in contrast, is stable and is 14 days +/- 2 days.

When does ovulation occur?

Every healthy woman has up to 12 ovulations a year. For periodicity This process can be influenced by a variety of factors.

This phenomenon usually occurs in Day 14 menstrual cycle. But this ideal parameters for a classic 28 day cycle. In fact, everything turns out a little differently.

For some women, the cycle can be both short and too long. This may be influenced the following reasons:

• Physical exhaustion.
• Nervous tension.
• Hormone jump.
• Sudden weight gain or loss.
• Hypothermia of the body.
• Disease development.

Varieties of ovulation

Not in all cases, the ovulatory process occurs, as in the textbook. Ovulation can be carried out - approximately on the 7-10th day of the cycle, or too much - after 17-19. The course of pregnancy and ovulation is not affected in any way.

The only feature is that when early release of the egg a woman finds out about her pregnancy earlier. And in the second case - .

There is such a term as multiple ovulation. It is characterized by the release of several eggs at once. Most often there are two. The cause of double ovulation may be a hereditary factor, the use of oral contraceptives or stimulation of ovulation.

REFERENCE! Multiple ovulation leads to the birth of twins. The conception of twins occurs as a result of the division of one egg.

How to determine ovulation?

In order to get pregnant faster, many women resort to methods for determining ovulation. There are many ways in which a woman can determine exactly when she is ovulating. These include the following:

• Measurement of basal temperature.
• Use of special tests.
• Research with ultrasound monitoring.
• Analysis of the physiological reactions of the body.

Each method has certain advantages and disadvantages. A woman can independently decide which method suits her best. Doctors consider ultrasound to be the most reliable. Analysis of physiological responses may not always be objective. In addition, many signs are considered indirect. For example, pain in lower abdomen may arise for other reasons.

ADVICE! Most optimal solution– track the maturation of follicles using folliculometry.

Each representative of the fair sex has a certain one. It does not replenish over a lifetime. That is why it is believed that the ability to bear children in women fades with age.

At the time of rupture, the follicle may appear in the direction where the ovulating follicle is located. The fluid from the follicle spreads through the fallopian tubes, thereby causing discomfort. A few days before ovulation, a woman's character changes. Such changes are difficult to replace. starting to look like egg white. And also mood swings are observed, the sensitivity of a woman changes. Increases libido.

Ovulation and pregnancy

In addition to the presence of a mature egg, other factors also affect the success of conception. The partner is of great importance. If spermatozoa , it is better to practice sexual intercourse . If, however, they have a short one, then sexual intimacy should be practiced.

Not the least important is the microflora of the woman's vagina. It should be beneficial for the life of spermatozoa. The reference is acidic. Alkaline environment prevents sperm from entering the fallopian tubes.

ON A NOTE! A woman can find out about her pregnancy about two weeks after the conception has taken place.

To determine the position, special tests or analysis for the hCG hormone are used. blood donation will show the correct result before the test.

The role of the corpus luteum

The fact that a woman is ovulating is confirmed by the corpus luteum. It is formed at the site of rupture of the follicle. The body has a clear, uneven outline, so it is very easy to identify it with the help of ultrasound . It is the corpus luteum that produces progesterone, which helps fertilized egg develop. In the non-pregnant cycle, the corpus luteum begins to dissolve after ovulation. Before the onset of menstruation, it is almost invisible.

IMPORTANT! In rare cases, the corpus luteum may be absent or underdeveloped. It can be replaced by taking hormone-containing drugs.

A healthy woman is characterized by the presence of no more than two anovulatory cycles in a year. A deviation from this figure may indicate the presence of certain problems. is the main reason why a woman cannot get pregnant.

Is not a disease. It is considered to be a symptom of some diseases. female genital area. Recently, it occurs more and more often not only in mature, but also in young women.

If a woman, she begins to notice menstrual irregularities, the appearance atypical spotting and other signs indicating a problem.

Stimulation of ovulation

The fact that a woman does not ovulate is confirmed after analyzing the work reproductive function over three cycles. Only after that doctors are accepted necessary measures. The most common way to get the ovaries to work is to stimulate them with medical preparations. They are assigned according to hormonal background women. For each day of the menstrual cycle, a certain drug is provided.

ADVICE! Before the stimulation procedure, it is recommended to check the patency of the fallopian tubes. This will protect against development. ectopic pregnancy.

Stimulation of the release of the egg can also be carried out in preparation for artificial insemination. In some cases, the ovaries begin active work after the abolition of oral contraceptives. This method is called rebound - effect.

In the presence of physiological obstacles to the release of the egg, surgical intervention is indicated. Most often, laparoscopic surgery is performed.

Unconventional ways to stimulate ovulation include the use of herbal preparations. Experts in the field of medicine do not approve of this method, but practice shows that it is quite effective.

The first thing you should pay attention to is how regularly ovulation occurs. Its presence is the main component of successful conception process.

Last update: 12/22/2018

Here Kanazawa addressed a very important issue, which often misleads people who do not know the basics of statistics. Does advertising determine women's desires to look a certain way, or were existing beauty trends formed much earlier and served as the root cause of the advertising that we see today? Despite the fact that these articles were written back in 2008, their relevance today has probably only increased. The following is an adapted translation.

Why Men Love Blonde Babes (And Why Women Want to Look Like Them)

It is commonly believed among sociologists, and the public is pawned, that the mass media impose arbitrary images of ideal female beauty on girls and women and force them to strive for these artificial and unreasonable standards. Nothing could be further from the truth.

According to this statement, girls and women want to look like supermodels, actresses or pop idols because they are bombarded with images of these women. As a consequence, according to this view, girls and women will stop wanting to look like them if the media stops imbuing them with such images or if the arbitrary standards of female beauty change.

This view was popularized, among many others, by former model-turned-communist activist Jean Kilborn in her documentary series Killing Us Softly.

Apparently, Kilborn and other feminists believe that girls and women are mindless robots who will do and think about anything the ad agencies tell them to do. Claiming that girls and women want to look like blonde beauties because of billboards, movies, TV shows, music videos, and magazine ads makes just as little sense as claiming that people feel hungry because they are bombarded with images of food. in mass media. If the media would stop bombarding people with images of food, they would never get hungry!

Anyone can see the absurdity of this argument. We periodically become hungry because we have physiological and psychological mechanisms that make us seek and consume food. And we have these innate mechanisms because they solve an important adaptive survival problem.

Our ancestors (long before they were humans or even mammals), who somehow didn't get hungry, didn't live long enough to leave offspring that carry their genes. Of course, we would be hungry even if all food advertising disappeared today. Advertisements are the consequences of our tendency to become hungry, not the causes. They speculate on our innate food needs, but they don't create them.

The same is true for the ideal of feminine beauty. Two pieces of evidence would be enough to refute the claim that media images and "culture" in general push girls and women to want to look like blonde beauties.

First, women dyed their hair in light color more than half a millennium, and perhaps two millennia ago, when there was no television, cinema and magazines (although there were portraits, and it is thanks to these portraits that we know today that women dyed their hair blonde in fifteenth and sixteenth century Italy) . Women's desire to be blonde predates the media by centuries, if not millennia.

Second, a recent study shows that women in Iran, where they are mostly not exposed to Western media and culture and therefore cannot recognize Jessica Simpson in Roseanne Barr, and where most women wear the traditional hijab, freely covering their whole body so that it is impossible to tell what shape it is, are in fact more concerned about the appearance of their body and want to lose more weight than their American rivals in the country of Vogue and Barbie dolls.

It will be hard to explain by the traditional, wholly attributing the preferences and desires of women to socialization through the media, just as Italian women in the fifteenth century, and Iranian women in our time, strive and achieve the same ideal image of female beauty, as women in modern Western societies do. .

Why, then, do women want to look like stunning blondes? Evolutionary psychology suggests that this is because men want to mate with women who look like them.

The desire of women to look like this is an immediate, expedient and sensible reaction to this male need. This unintentionally leads to another question: Why do men want to mate with women who look like them?

Because women who look like them have a higher reproductive value and ability to reproduce, and, on average, achieve greater reproductive success. There is nothing accidental in the image of ideal female beauty; it has been strictly and carefully determined by millions of years of evolution through sexual selection.

Nowadays, men want to mate with women who look like blonde beauties, and as a result, women want to look like them, because our male ancestors, who did not want to mate with women who look like them, did not leave as many descendants as those who did so.

Let's take a closer look at what I mean by "blond beauties." Note, first, that there has been a long line of blondes in the Western media: Pamela Anderson, Jordan, Madonna, Brigitte Bardot, Jayne Mansfield, going back to the canonical Marilyn Monroe and even further back in history. Equally, there are plenty of contemporary examples: Jessica Simpson, Cameron Diaz, Scarlett Johansson, to name a few.

Readers from non-Western societies may substitute female beauty representatives from their own cultures accordingly. I do not know who they are, but despite this, I can be sure that they share many characteristics with their Western competitors.

What are these character traits? In the next few posts, I will highlight and review in turn the key features that define the image of ideal female beauty. This is youth long hair, narrow waist, big breasts, blond hair, blue eyes and big eyes. Behind each of them is an evolutionary logic.

Why do men prefer to mate with younger women?

One of the main characteristics of ideal female beauty is youth. Why do men prefer to mate with younger women?

Men prefer young women because they have greater reproductive value and fertility than older women. A woman's reproductive value is the number of children she is expected to have in the remainder of her reproductive career, and therefore peaks at the very beginning of her period, declines steadily over the course of her life, and reaches zero at menopause.

Her fertility is the average number of children she currently has at any given age, and peaks between the ages of 20 and 30. The logic of evolutionary psychology suggests that because of this, men are attracted to teenage girls and young women, despite the laws of a civilized society regarding marriageable age.

Remember that in the environment of the ancestors there were no laws prohibiting sexual intercourse with persons under the age of majority; in fact, there were no laws at all. , stating that the human brain has difficulty making sense of and dealing with entities and situations that did not exist in the ancestral environment, and suggests that the human brain cannot properly comprehend written law, including laws regarding marriageable age.

For example, male high school and college professors in the United States (but not their female counterparts) have a higher than expected divorce rate and a lower than expected remarriage rate, likely because they constantly run into girls. and women in the prime of their reproductive value.

Any adult woman they may be married to or dating pales in reproductive performance compared to their female students. This may also explain why most don't last too long. Actors constantly encounter and interact closely with ever younger generations of rising movie stars, while their actress-model spouses can only get older.

In this regard, here is a small autobiographical digression, which, nevertheless, explains my point of view on the importance of youth in ideal female beauty. When Alan S. Miller and I began writing Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters in 2000, we chose Pamela Anderson as our female beauty ideal, the animated Barbie doll, and we titled the relevant section of the book Why Men Like Pamela Anderson (and why do women want to look like her)?”

However, over the years it has ceased to meet the requirements. The Rescuers stopped showing in 2001, and in 2007 Pamela Anderson turned 40. As a result, we decided to replace her with Britney Spears, who at the time was the perfect image of a virgin, marriageable princess. Well, you know what happened to her lately. Next candidate please!

As we searched again for another ideal image of female beauty to replace Britney Spears, it ultimately dawned on us that no matter who we decide to use, she will go out of fashion pretty soon due to the significant penalty placed on youth in favor of perfect female beauty.

If we were writing our book 30 years ago, the section would have been titled "Why do people like Farrah Fawcett-Majors (and why do women want to be like her)?" (except that evolutionary psychology didn't exist 30 years ago and we wouldn't have had anything to write about in our book!).

This would make our book seem really dated; Farrah Fawcett turned 60 in 2007. Because we wanted our book to be read for a long time and didn't want it to ever look dated, we ultimately decided not to use the modern example of a stunning blonde.

Why do men prefer women with long hair?

Mostly men prefer women with long hair. And most young women choose to grow their hair long. Again, men's preference for women with long hair is the reason why women choose to grow their hair long. The question arises: why do men prefer women with long hair?

Since a human fetus grows inside a woman's body for nine months, and then the mother breastfeeds her newborn baby for several years after, a woman's health is vital to the baby's well-being.

Sickly women do not make good mothers much more than when sickly men do not make good fathers. In view of this, men are interested in choosing healthy women as mothers of their children. One of the reasons men prefer younger women, other than their higher reproductive value and fertility (as discussed in my previous post), is that younger women tend to be healthier on average than older women.

How can men evaluate the health of their potential partners? There were no clinics in the environment of the ancestors; male ancestors had to judge for themselves the health of women. One of the reliable indicators of health is physical attractiveness and this is the reason why men like beautiful women as I mentioned in a previous post.

Another good indicator of health is hair. At healthy people(men and women) the hair is glossy, shiny, while the hair of sickly people loses its luster. During illness, the body needs to use up all available nutrients (such as iron and protein) to fight off the illness. Since hair is not essential for survival (compared to, say, bone marrow), hair is the very first thing the body will turn to in order to collect the necessary nutrients. Because of this, the poor health of a person is primarily found in the condition of the hair.

In addition to this, hair grows very slowly, about six inches per year. This means that if a woman has shoulder-length hair (two feet long), it accurately indicates the state of her health over the past four years, because, once the hair grows, the owner can do nothing about its appearance afterwards.

A woman may be healthy now, but if she has been ill for some time in the past four years, her long hair would indicate her past illness. And in the ancestral environment, there was nothing a woman could do to make her hair look healthy and shiny unless she was healthy. This is also the reason why older women tend to wear short haircuts, as they tend to become less healthy as they age, and they don't want telltale signs of their current health condition hanging from their heads.

If you want to see this process in action, do a little experiment yourself. Find in public place a stranger (for example, in a park or at a metro station). Watch her from behind, not looking at her face, hands, clothes or anything else that touches her, but look only at her hair.

Try to guess her age solely from the condition of her hair and nothing else. Once you've come up with a ballpark figure for her age, walk past her, turn around, and sneak a peek at the woman's face. You will find that on very rare occasions you will be surprised by her estimated age if you look at her face and her entire body, because usually the condition of her hair is a very accurate indicator of her age. You have now established the importance of hair as an indicator of age in ancestral conditions.

Why 90-60-90 are ideal female parameters

What are the ideal female parameters? 90-60-90. Why are they considered ideal female parameters? It turns out that these numbers are not chosen arbitrarily. There is a scrupulous evolutionary logic behind them.

University of Texas evolutionary psychologist Devendra Singh has done experiments in different societies to demonstrate that men have a low waist-to-hip ratio (waist size divided by hip size).

Familiarized with drawings of female figures that are identical in every way except for the waist-to-hip ratio (which varies from 0.7 to 1), most of the men in Singh's experiments prefer women with a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7, which is very close to the waist-to-hip ratio. any with proportions of 90-60-90 (0.67).

I personally and informally recreated Singh's experiments in three different countries on three different continents (USA, New Zealand and UK) and got the same results as Singh. The results seem to be quite uniform in every experiment in every country; most men prefer women with a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.7, and most women prefer men with a waist-to-hip ratio of 0.9.

Why do men desire women with a low waist-to-hip ratio? Singh argues that this is the case, since healthy women have lower waist-to-hip ratios than unhealthy women.

A host of diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, heart attack, stroke, and gallbladder disorders rearrange body fat distribution so that ill women cannot maintain a low waist-to-hip ratio.

Women with a low waist-to-hip ratio are also more fertile; it is easier for them to conceive a child and do it at an earlier age, because they have a large amount of the most important reproductive hormones. And of course, women who are already pregnant with another man's child cannot maintain a low waist-to-hip ratio.

The waist-to-hip ratio in women also varies, albeit very slightly, during the menstrual cycle; it is at its lowest around ovulation, when the woman is fertile. Thus, men unconsciously search for healthier and more fertile women when they look for women with narrow waists.

Singh's preference for a low waist-to-hip ratio explains both the popularity of corsets in many Western societies throughout history as a device to keep women's waists as narrow as possible, and the modern fashion among young women to expose their midriffs.

This also explains why it is teenage girls, rather than menopausal women, who are more likely to expose their bellies as a direct signal of their fertility (the ability to conceive), just as young women, rather than older women, let their hair out as an open signal. their health.

The importance of the waist-to-hip ratio in determining the fertility of women explains the importance of the second and third numbers in the ideal female parameters of 90-60-90. But what about the first 90? Why is it important for women to have 90 cm breasts? This is the topic of my next post.

Why do men prefer women with big breasts?

For a long time it was a mystery to evolutionary psychology why men prefer women with large breasts, especially since the size female breast has nothing to do with her ability to produce milk; women with small breasts can produce as much milk for their babies as women with large breasts.

Therefore, women with large breasts are not necessarily better mothers than women with small breasts. Why then do men prefer women with large breasts? Until recently, there was no satisfactory answer to this question.

Then-Harvard anthropologist Frank Marlowe proposed a solution to this puzzle in the late 1990s, though in retrospect, another mystery is why no one thought of it before.

Marlowe makes the simple observation that larger, and therefore heavier, breasts sag more noticeably with age than small breasts. Thus, it is much easier for men to judge a woman's age (and her reproductive value) on the basis of if she has larger breasts than if she has smaller breasts, which do not change in shape with age.

Recall that in the conditions of the life of the ancestors, there were no driver's licenses or birth certificates that men could check and find out how old women are. There was no calendar and thus there was no concept of birthdays among the ancestors, so the women themselves did not know exactly how old they were.

Male ancestors needed to infer a woman's age and reproductive value from some physical signs, and the condition of her breasts was a very good clue, but only if she was large enough to noticeably change shape with age. Men could more accurately determine a woman's age and only attempt to mate with younger women if they had large breasts. Marlow hypothesizes that this is why men find women with large breasts more attractive.

Not so long ago, there was an alternative evolutionary psychology explanation for why men prefer women with large breasts. A study of Polish women shows that women who have both large breasts and a narrow waist are the most fertile, as indicated by their levels of two sex hormones (17-β-estradiol and progesterone). Therefore, men may prefer women with large breasts for the same reason as women with thin waists.

Further empirical evidence is needed to evaluate which of these two competing explanations of evolutionary psychology is more accurate. This is just one of the many areas in evolutionary psychology where competing hypotheses exist—a sign of active, healthy science, and clear evidence that critics of evolutionary psychology who claim that it consists of unyielding “just fairy tales” are simply ignorant of the subject.

Men can accurately determine a woman's age and reproductive value if they can directly examine their breasts and other physical features (such as body fat content and distribution, evidence of which is a thin waist, as I explain in a previous post).

But what would men do if they could not directly observe female bodies? What if the woman's body is hidden, for example, by warm clothes? Men need another way to tell a woman's age: her hair color. This is the topic of my next post.

Why blondes are stupid

Why do blondes have more fun? Because gentlemen prefer blondes. Why do gentlemen prefer blondes? Because they have developed psychological mechanisms that predispose them to prefer women with blond hair. For what?

The notion that blond hair is a feminine ideal dates back at least half a millennium, and possibly two millennia ago. There is evidence that women in the Roman and Renaissance eras dyed their hair blonde long before the discovery of peroxide in 1812. Women throughout history have been so eager to be blonde that they achieved it without the help of peroxide.

Some people are sure that men prefer blond hair, because blondes usually have lighter skin, which they prefer. But this seems to be wrong. While men prefer women with more light color skin, because it is an indicator of higher fertility (a woman's skin color darkens if she is pregnant or taking pills), the lightest skin color corresponds to red hair, not blond; however, according to one study, both men and women have a strong antipathy towards partners with red hair.

It turns out that men prefer blond hair for the same reason they prefer large breasts: both are accurate indicators of a woman's age and, therefore, reproductive value.

What makes blonde hair different from all other hair colors is that it changes dramatically with age. Young girls with light blond hair usually grow into women with brown hair (although there are only a very few women who retain their light blond hair into adulthood).

In this regard, if men choose to mate with blonde women, they unconsciously try to mate with younger (and therefore healthier and more fertile on average) women with greater reproductive value and fertility.

It is no coincidence that blondness evolved in Scandinavia and northern Europe, where it is very cold in winter. In Africa, where our ancestors evolved for most of their evolutionary history, humans (male and female) remained mostly naked.

In such an environment, men could accurately determine a woman's age from the distribution of fat on her body or from the firmness of her breasts (which I discuss in a previous post). Men in cold climates did not have this opportunity because the women (and men) in such conditions were warmly bundled up.

This is probably why blonde hair evolved in cold climates as an alternative means for women to signal their youth. Under these circumstances, the males responded by developing a predisposition to prefer mating with fair-haired women; those who developed, on average, had greater reproductive success than those who did not because, unbeknownst to them, they ended up mating with younger, healthier females with higher reproductive value and fertility.

Incidentally, this also suggests that the blonde empty-headed stereotype may have some statistical basis and be true (because in fact all stereotypes are true, as I explain in a previous series of posts).

Why do people think blondes are stupid? Recall that the human brain, including the stereotypes that it generates, is adapted to the living conditions of the ancestors (as suggested by ). What would be the average age of blondes in natural ancestral conditions (say, in Northern Europe 10,000 years ago) in the absence of hair dye? Approximately 15. What would be the average age of brunettes in the same environmental conditions? Approximately 35.

A 15-year-old woman will inevitably be more naive and less experienced, mature, and wise (in other words, stupid) than a 35-year-old woman, regardless of the color of her hair. It's not that blondes are dumber than brunettes, but that younger women are "stupid" (less knowledgeable, experienced, and mature) than older women, and blonde hair is a reliable indicator of exceptional youth.

There must be the same logic behind the stereotype that women with large breasts are stupid. In ancestral conditions, without plastic surgery or even bras, only very young women had large firm breasts.

Why blue eyes are attractive

The typical description of ideal feminine beauty is always accompanied by "blonde hair, blue eyes". After Marlow offered a solution to the mystery of why men prefer women with large breasts, the attractiveness of blue eyes remained the only mystery to be solved and was solved in the field of characteristics associated with physical attractiveness.

We learned why men prefer women with all the features that characterize a Barbie or a typical blonde beauty, and we learned the evolutionary logic behind each of them. But the color of the eyes, even more than the color of the hair, seems to be a very arbitrary trait. Why should women with blue eyes be different from those with green or brown eyes? Yet the preference for blue eyes seems universal and undeniable.

There is another link in the secret of blue eyes. Unlike all the other characteristics discussed earlier in this series of posts (youthfulness, long hair, narrow waist, large breasts, and blond hair) that are considered attractive only by women, blue eyes are said to be attractive to both women and men. .

For example, a typical description of an attractive man is "tall, dark and handsome", not blond; unlike blondes, blond men are not universally considered attractive (because women generally prefer to mate with older men rather than younger ones).

And yet, as the examples of Frank Sinatra (“Mr. Blue Eyes”) and Paul Newman (who famously sneered that he didn’t want his epitaph to read: “Here lies Paul Newman, who died a failure because his eyes turned brown”) show, that men with blue eyes are considered as attractive as women with blue eyes. And so it seems that the answer to the question "Why are blue eyes attractive?" must include more than just male sexual preference.

The attractiveness of blue eyes remained an evolutionary mystery until my graduate student Lee Ann Turney came up with an innovative solution in a class abstract she took from me in the spring of 2002.

As far as I know, her explanation for the attractiveness of blue eyes is the only one that anyone has ever offered, and at least has a superficial plausibility. But, of course, it must be subjected to rigorous experimental testing before it can become an acceptable explanation.

Turney notes that the human pupil dilates when an individual acts with what he likes. For example, the pupils of women and newborns (but not men) spontaneously dilate when they see babies. Thus, pupillary dilation, usually beyond the conscious volitional control of an individual, can be used as a reliable indicator of interest and attractiveness.

Most people don't even realize that their pupil size changes when they see something they like, so it would be hard to fool others by consciously controlling your pupil size. We can't help but show our interest and attraction to other people through the size of our pupils.

Turney then makes two simple observations.

First, any human pupil is dark brown, regardless of the color of the iris that surrounds the pupil and determines the color of the eye.

Secondly, blue is the lightest color of the human iris.

The result of these two observations is that it is easiest to determine pupil size in blue eyes. If you encounter people with different eye colors and need to determine if any person likes you or is interested in you, all other things being equal, it is easiest to recognize the level of interest or attraction of a blue-eyed person.

Turney's argument, which I'm sure may be true, is that blue-eyed people are considered attractive as potential mates because whether or not they're interested in us is the easiest way to tell. People with blue eyes are easier to "read the minds of" than those with eyes of any other color, at least when it comes to interest or attraction.

One of the advantages of Turney's solution to the blue eye puzzle is that it not only explains why blue eyes are considered ideal in partners, but also explains why, unlike all the other features that I cover in this series of posts. Blue eyes are considered attractive in both sexes.

It is also important for women to read the thoughts of men, as it is for men to read women's; given that the consequences of making mistakes when attracting the “wrong” person are much greater, women should have a greater need to decide whether their potential partner appears genuinely interested in them or not. The negative consequences of being fooled by a false admirer are much more important for women, so blue eyes should be a more important trait in men than in women.

In this regard, I believe that Turney's logic can also explain why people with dark brown eyes are often considered "mysterious".

They are mysterious because their thoughts - that is, whether they are interested in us or attracted to us - are much more difficult to determine. The color of a dark brown iris is very similar to the (universal) color of a dark brown pupil, and therefore it is very difficult to estimate pupil size in dark brown eyes. In one study, many people, both men and women, show an aversion to dark brown eyes (just as they do with red hair).

Why are women with big eyes attractive?

Another trait considered attractive in women is big eyes. However, unlike blue eyes (discussed in the previous post), huge eyes are only considered attractive to women, not men. Why is that? Why are big eyes seen as attractive in women and not in men?

There are at least two different reasons why big eyes are an element of ideal female beauty. First, as was briefly mentioned in the previous post, big eyes (together with full lips, large foreheads and smaller chins) are indicators high level estrogen. And women with higher levels of estrogen find it easier to conceive than women with more low level estrogen. Therefore, women with large eyes, on average, make better partners than women with smaller eyes.

The second reason is that large eyes are a property of neoteny (characteristic of children and infants). Since human eyes do not increase in size to the same extent as the rest of the face and head during development, the size of the eyes relative to the face decreases as we grow.

As we all know, babies (and newborns of other mammals) have relatively larger eyes compared to older children and adults. And as a result, people (both men and women) with big eyes are often perceived to be younger than they actually are. Since, as I explain in a previous post, men prefer younger women, they tend to favor women with neoteny characteristics such as large eyes. This is another reason why large eyes (typical of babies and children) are a component of the ideal female beauty.

You can try to dismiss this explanation of the attraction of women with big eyes to men. You can (correctly) point out that men don't try to mate with babies and young children; this would be grossly inadequate, because they are not prolific. So, you may ask: why do men prefer women who, in fact, look like children?

This is a very good moment to introduce an important concept in evolutionary biology: uncontrolled selection, sometimes known as Fisher's uncontrolled selection, named after the British geneticist Ronald A. Fisher, who first proposed the hypothesis.

As an aside, if you ever collected basic statistics in college, you may vaguely recall something called "F-statistics" or "F-test". The "F" in "F-statistics" stands for "Fischer", who invented the test and made other significant contributions to the development of statistics. This is why, unlike the t-statistic, z-test, or chi-square test, "F" is always capitalized.

The concept of uncontrolled selection suggests that when members of one sex prefer partners with certain genetic traits, then in the process of sexual selection, members of the other sex will possess the trait in increasingly exaggerated forms.

Moose antlers are a good example. Elk moose prefer to mate with larger antler males because such males can out-compete other males with smaller antlers for territory and mates, and since antler size is largely genetically determined, their offspring will also have big horns attractive to potential partners.

Eventually, male moose will have larger and larger antlers until their antlers are simply too big. They become so large that they create obstacles for feeding and survival and even for fighting other males, which is the original goal of having large horns in the first place. However, males still display prominently large horns because the trait is favored by females and evolves according to Fischer's uncontrolled selection.

Perhaps the same process occurs with men's preference for women with neotenic traits. As men prefer to mate with younger women, women achieve more and more neotenous features that make them appear not just at marriageable age and puberty, but eventually even pre-pubescent, like children and babies.

Men's preference for blond hair may have been subject to similar uncontrolled selection. As Carlene Flora, Senior Editor of Psychologytoday, pointed out to me earlier, many young blonde children stop being blonde and turn dark hair long before they reach puberty (as Carlene did).

Therefore, while preferring to mate with women with blond blonde hair, men are often (inappropriately) attracted to pre-pubescent children. Their preference for women with large eyes may be similarly inadequate. However, men's preference for women with neoteny traits, and women's possession of such traits, have evolved through uncontrolled selection.

Why men are deceived by women and modern technology

So, men like women who look like blond beauties or Barbies, and women want to look like them, because each of them key features(youth, long hair, thin waist, large breasts, blond hair, blue eyes and large eyes) is an indicator of youth and therefore health, reproductive value and fertility.

There is a thoughtful evolutionary logic behind the image of ideal female beauty. By now, astute readers who have followed the posts in this series have been able to grasp the irony of it all. Nothing I said in earlier posts in this cycle is true anymore.

Through the use of facelifts, wigs, liposuction, surgical breast augmentation, hair dye, colored contact lenses and plastic surgery, any woman - regardless of her age - can have all the fundamental features that define the ideal feminine beauty.

A very small part of Pamela Anderson's appearance is natural. Today, a 40-year-old woman can rely on modern technologies to still look like a 20 year old. Farrah Fawcett at 60 looks better and younger than most "ordinary" women half her age.

And men fall in love with them. Since the savannah principle (“the human brain has difficulty making sense of and taking action on entities and situations that did not exist in the ancestral environment”) suggests that the male brain cannot actually comprehend silicone breasts or hair dye, since these things are not existed in the conditions of the life of their ancestors 10,000 years ago.

Men can cognitively and consciously understand that many blondes with firm large breasts are actually under 15 years old, but they still find them attractive because their formed psychological mechanisms are deceived by modern inventions that did not exist in the natural conditions of their ancestors.

Ovulation (from Latin ovum - egg) - the release of a mature, capable of fertilizing the egg from the ovarian follicle into abdominal cavity; stage of the menstrual cycle (ovarian cycle).

Ovulation in women of childbearing age occurs periodically (every 21-35 days). The frequency of ovulation is regulated by neurohumoral mechanisms, mainly gonadotropic hormones of the anterior pituitary gland and ovarian follicular hormone. Ovulation is facilitated by the accumulation of follicular fluid and the thinning of ovarian tissue located above the protruding pole of the follicle. The rhythm of ovulation, which is constant for every woman, undergoes changes within 3 months after an abortion, within a year after childbirth, and also after 40 years, when the body is preparing for the premenopausal period. Ovulation stops with the onset of pregnancy and after the extinction of menstrual function. Establishing the timing of ovulation is important when choosing the most productive time for fertilization, artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization.

Signs of ovulation

Subjective signs of ovulation can be short-term pain in the lower abdomen. Objective signs of ovulation are an increase in mucous secretions from the vagina and a decrease in rectal (basal) temperature on the day of ovulation with an increase in it the next day, an increase in the content of progesterone in the blood plasma, etc. Violation of ovulation is due to dysfunction of the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian system and can be caused by inflammation genitals, dysfunction of the adrenal cortex or thyroid gland, systemic diseases, tumors of the pituitary and hypothalamus, stressful situations. The absence of ovulation in childbearing age (anovulation) is manifested by a violation of the rhythm of menstruation by the type of oligomenorrhea (menstruation lasting 1-2 days), amenorrhea, dysfunctional uterine bleeding. Lack of ovulation (anovulation) is always the cause of a woman's infertility. Methods for restoring ovulation are determined by the cause that caused anovulation, and require an appointment with a gynecologist and special treatment.

Ovulation and contraception

Some women experience peak sexual arousal on the days of ovulation. However, the use of a physiological method of contraception from pregnancy, based on sexual abstinence during ovulation, is especially difficult for young spouses, whose frequency of sexual intercourse reaches a fairly high level. In addition, with strong love excitement and nervous stress, additional ovulation can occur (especially with episodic, irregular intercourse), and then not one, but two eggs mature in one menstrual cycle. This should be remembered when choosing one or another method of contraception.

Physiology of the ovulation cycle

As soon as every healthy girl at the age of 11-15 begins to menstruate, which is an indicator of her body's readiness for childbearing, then there are problems associated with counting the days of the menstrual cycle and the legitimate question why menstruation does not occur, or vice versa, why the long-awaited pregnancy does not occur. . This makes a woman think and wait all the time, be in the dark about what happens to her every month. And so every month for decades.

Length of menstruation and cycle

Ideal menstruation lasts 3-5 days and repeats every 28 days. However, for some women, this cycle takes 19 days or even less, while for others it lasts from 35 to 45 days, which is a feature of their body, and not a violation of menstrual function. The duration of menstruation also, depending on the organism, can vary within a week. All this should not cause alarm in a woman, but a delay of more than two months, called opsometry or more than six months - amenorrhea, should alert the woman and make sure to find out the cause with a gynecologist.

Length of the menstrual cycle

- This is a complex physiological process that continues in women up to 45 - 55 years. It is regulated by the so-called sex centers located in the middle part of the diencephalon - the hypothalamus. The changes that occur during the menstrual cycle are most pronounced in the uterus and ovaries. In the ovary, under the influence of hormones produced by the ovarian follicles, partly by the adrenal cortex and testes, the main follicle, which contains the egg, grows and matures. The mature follicle ruptures and the egg, along with the follicular fluid, enters the abdominal cavity, and then into the fallopian tube. The process of rupture of the follicle and the release of a mature (suitable for fertilization) egg from its cavity is called ovulation, which, with a 28-day cycle, occurs most often between the 13th and 15th days.

corpus luteum, estrogen, progesterone

A corpus luteum forms at the site of the ruptured follicle. These morphological changes in the ovary are accompanied by the release of sex steroid hormones - estrogens and progesterone. Estrogens are secreted by the maturing follicle, and progesterone by the corpus luteum.

The release of estrogen has two maxima - during ovulation and during the period of maximum activity of the corpus luteum. So, for example, if the normal estrogen content is about 10 µg/l, then during ovulation it is about 50 µg/l, and during pregnancy, especially towards the end of it, the estrogen content in the blood increases to 70-80 µg/l per due to a sharp increase in the biosynthesis of estrogens in the placenta.

Together with progesterone, estrogens promote the implantation (introduction) of a fertilized egg, maintain pregnancy and promote childbirth. Estrogens play an important role in the regulation of many biochemical processes, are involved in carbohydrate metabolism, lipid distribution, stimulate the synthesis of amino acids, nucleic acids and proteins. Estrogens promote calcium deposition in bone tissue, delay the release of sodium, potassium, phosphorus and water from the body, that is, increase their concentration both in the blood and in electrolytes (urine, saliva, nasal secretions, tears) of the body.

The secretion of estrogens is controlled by the anterior pituitary gland and its genadotropic hormones: follicle-stimulating (FSH) and luteinizing (LH).

Under the influence of estrogens in the first phase of the menstrual cycle, called folliculin, regeneration occurs in the uterus, that is, the restoration and growth of its mucous membrane - the endometrium, the growth of glands that stretch in length and become convoluted. The mucous membrane of the uterus thickens 4-5 times. In the glands of the cervix, the secretion of mucous secretion increases, the cervical canal expands, and becomes easily passable for spermatozoa. In the mammary glands, the epithelium grows inside the milk ducts.

In the second phase, called luteal (from the Latin word luteus - yellow), under the influence of progesterone, the intensity of metabolic processes in the body decreases. The growth of the mucous membrane of the body of the uterus stops, it becomes loose, edematous, a secret appears in the glands, which creates favorable conditions for attaching a fertilized egg to the mucous membrane and developing the embryo. The glands stop secreting mucus, the cervical canal closes. In the mammary glands, from the overgrown epithelium of the end sections of the milk ducts, alveoli arise, capable of producing and secreting milk.

If pregnancy does not occur, the corpus luteum dies, the functional layer of the endometrium is rejected, and menstruation occurs. Monthly bleeding varies from three to seven days, the amount of blood lost is from 40 to 150 g.

Timing of ovulation

It should be noted that different women have a noticeable difference in the timing of ovulation. And even for the same woman, the exact timing of the onset fluctuates in different months. In some women, cycles are characterized by exceptional irregularity. In other cases, cycles may be longer or shorter than the average - 14 days. In rare cases, it happens that in women with a very short cycle, ovulation occurs around the end of the period of menstrual bleeding, but still, in most cases, ovulation occurs quite regularly.

If, for one reason or another, ovulation does not occur, the endometrial layer in the uterus is thrown out during menstruation. If the fusion of the egg and sperm has occurred, then the cytoplasm of the egg begins to vibrate very strongly, as if the egg is experiencing an orgasm. Sperm penetration is the final stages of egg maturation. All that remains of a spermatozoon is its nucleus, where 23 chromosomes are densely packed (half the set of a normal cell). The sperm nucleus is now rapidly approaching the egg nucleus, which also contains 23 chromosomes. The two cores are slowly touching. Their shells dissolve and they merge, as a result of which they are divided into pairs and form 46 chromosomes. Of the 23 chromosomes of the sperm, 22 are completely analogous to the chromosomes of the egg. They determine all the physical characteristics of a person except gender. In the remaining pair from the egg there is always an X chromosome, and from the sperm there can be an X or Y chromosome. Thus, if there are 2 XX chromosomes in this set, then a girl will be born, if XY, then a boy.

Research conducted at the “National Institute of Medical Problems environment” (North Carolina) showed that not only the actual conception of a child, but also its gender depends on the time of conception in relation to the time of ovulation.

The probability of conception is maximum on the day of ovulation and is estimated at about 33%. A high probability is also noted on the day before ovulation - 31%, two days before it - 27%. Five days before ovulation, the probability of conception is estimated to be 10%; four days before ovulation, 14%; and three days, 16%. Six days before ovulation and the day after ovulation, the chance of conception through sexual intercourse is very low.

Considering that the average “lifespan” of spermatozoa is 2-3 days (in rare cases it reaches 5-7 days), and the female egg remains viable for about 12-24 hours, then the maximum duration of the “dangerous” period is 6- 9 days and the “dangerous” period corresponds to the phase of slow rise (6-7 days) and rapid decline (1-2 days) before and after the day of ovulation, respectively. Ovulation, as noted above, divides the menstrual cycle into two phases: the follicle maturation phase, which, with an average cycle duration, is 10-16 days, and the luteal phase (corpus luteum phase), which is stable, independent of the duration of the menstrual cycle and is 12- 16 days. The corpus luteum phase is referred to as the period of absolute infertility, it begins 1-2 days after ovulation and ends with the onset of a new menstruation.

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