Menstrual Cycle Hormones and Homeostasis
Ever wondered how your body manages to coordinate such a complex monthly process? It's all down to four crucial hormones working like a perfectly timed orchestra.
Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) kicks things off from your pituitary gland. This hormone gets your eggs ready for action and tells your ovaries to start pumping out oestrogen. Think of FSH as the starting gun for each cycle.
Oestrogen takes over next, building up the lining of your uterus to create the perfect environment for a potential pregnancy. Here's where it gets clever - oestrogen also switches on Luteinising Hormone (LH) production whilst switching off FSH.
LH has one main job: triggering ovulation around day 14 when that mature egg gets released. After ovulation, progesterone steps in to maintain the uterus lining alongside oestrogen. If no pregnancy occurs, progesterone levels crash, the lining breaks down, and you're back to day 1 - menstruation begins.
Key Insight: Notice how each hormone both stimulates AND inhibits others? This negative feedback keeps the whole system perfectly balanced - that's homeostasis in action!