The fact that the period comes earlier in life nowadays, coupled together with an improved diet, not as many pregnancies and an extended life expectancy will mean that the average woman will experience more periods throughout her life than previous generations did. The “average” Australian woman is set to start menstruating at the age of 12 or 13, up until between the ages of 25 and 35, afterwards we can expect 2-3 pregnancies every two years, and breast feeding for 3 to 9 months after having each child. After this statistically possible routine, her period cycle will be regular on a monthly basis until she turns the age of 50, when she enters into menopause. Statistically, Australian women should have an average of about 360 to 400 periods throughout their lifetimes.
Historically, girls in Australia began to menstruate around the ages of 14-15 and often times this was the indicator that a girl had entered into fertility and thus was married shortly thereafter. The age at which girls gave birth to children was much earlier, and it was not unusual for a woman to have many children as long as she was not negatively impacted by sexually transmitted diseases, inadequate nutrition or poor health. It was also common for women to pass away during childbirth, so this would have been one obstacle to rearing more children. In addition to this, contraception was not as effective as it is in modern times, and the frequency with which women got pregnant was often determined by the period of their ability to breast feed and produce milk, as it was both ascertained that a woman should not engage in sexual activity while actively being able to breastfeed, as well as for the duration of the breast feeding cycle it was believed that the woman was less fertile.
Back then, it was scientific opinion that having sexual relations was to bring about the period, and having the period return was believed to be harmful to sustaining the baby, as the “white blood”, or the woman’s breast milk, was thought to be diverted from the breasts to the womb. During this era, it was common for women to be either pregnant or breastfeeding most of the time, as long as they were fertile, and only experienced 40 periods in total. The menstrual cycle and menstruation are both influenced by lifestyle, diet and stress, and can effect both how easy or difficult a cycle is, as well as how often it occurs. These things do not occur to us as obviously in modern times as they would have in the early 1900’s, for example, as in modernity we are accustomed to using painkillers for relief, together with birth control tablets, to ease the symptoms of the menstrual cycle.
As we continue on with new developments in medicine, we are beginning to increasingly and in greater depth understand the menstrual cycle and it’s dependence on both nutrition as well as nurture in a harmonious environment. Many women would rather use some alternative or herbal medicine, or homeopathic treatment or home remedy to deal with the symptoms and pain of their menstrual cycle, over medication like painkillers and other chemicals. Other than that, there are alternatives for women who would rather grow their medicine in the garden, taking a more natural approach to alleviating their menstrual pains, or change something about their lifestyle that will help bring harmony to their menstrual cycles. There are a variety of surgical, medical and herbal treatments in relations to menstrual issues. No treatment or another should be misconstrued as being more adequate in it’s menstrual healing capacity than another. The fact that the number of periods the average woman will live through has increased by ten times will automatically generate the chance for new issues to arise. Despite this, over time we have learned what works help alleviate these symptoms and distract from the suffering caused by the menstrual cycle.