Do you get your periods regularly? Having a regular menstrual cycle is a sign of good health but it can be quite complicated if you have fluctuating hormones and late or missed periods.

When your menstrual cycle is regular, it means that it is exactly the same length all the time. On the other hand, irregular or late periods mean that the cycle can vary by days in length.

If you have irregular or late menstrual periods, you are likely to frequently question why you have late periods.

In order to clarify the doubts in your mind, here are a few of the most common reasons for late periods:

1. Extreme stress: Emotional and physical stress can contribute equally to late or irregular periods. If you’ve experienced a lot of physical and emotional stress, you will probably experience a change in your menstrual cycle.
2. Overweight: If you are carrying more body pounds than required, your period may be delayed or irregular.
3. Prescribed medications: Certain prescribed medications including birth control pills can affect your menstrual cycle.
4. Pregnancy: Depending on your age and recent sexual intercourse, your period will be late if you are pregnant. This is the first thing to consider if your period is late.

Some women with small breast tumors may have a greater risk of the cancer recurring after treatment than has been believed, and might benefit from taking the drug Herceptin, a new study suggests.

Treatments like chemotherapy or Herceptin are not usually recommended for women whose tumors are smaller than 1 centimeter — just under half an inch — and have not spread beyond the breast.

However, Texas researchers who looked at records on 1,315 such patients found that the 10 percent who had high levels of a protein called HER-2 had three times the risk of suffering a recurrence than did women with less HER-2.

Only 77 percent of those with high HER-2 levels were alive and cancer-free five years after treatment versus 94 percent of the others.

Women in the study had been treated at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston or at two European hospitals in the 1990s.

HER-2 has long been known to predict aggressiveness of tumors. But it has been considered less important than other factors like the size of a tumor or whether it is being helped to grow by estrogen.

A South Dakota State University study showed that women who began menstruating at an earlier age had a higher percentage of body fat as adults than women who began menstruating later.

But women who began menstruating earlier also had higher bone mineral density in the hip as adult women. They also had greater bone mass and bone density in the femoral neck region of the hip, a common site for hip fracture.

These are among the findings in a study by assistant professor Teresa Binkley at SDSU’s Ethel Austin Martin Program in Human Nutrition.

The study looked at the effect of menarcheal age on body size and bone measures in adult women.

” ‘Menarcheal age’ refers to the age at which a female first begins menstruation,” Binkley explained.

“If the age at which a female starts menstruating, or her menarcheal age, is early, then she has an increased exposure to estrogen compared to a female with a later menarcheal age.”

Estrogen exposure leads to growth plate closure, or the stage at which bones stop growing in length, as well as to mineral packing in bone.

Coping with pregnancy loss is one of the most devastating and difficult things anyone can ever do.

It often brings feeling about guilt, depression, sadness and also fear.

The most beneficial way to cope with pregnancy loss is to deal with these emotions and handle them in a more effective way.

There are a number of ways to handle your emotions after miscarriage. Some of the best ways include:

Avoid blaming yourself: Realize that it’s not your fault and miscarriage or complications in pregnancy can happen to anyone.

Talk openly about your feelings and how it is affecting you with your partner to lift the burden from your mind.

Consult therapists: Meet with therapists individually and talk to them about your miscarriage. This can be a huge help to allow you to grieve over your loss together.

They can also help give you effective techniques that will enable you to understand what has happened to you.

Take a break from work: If you feel incapable of continuing your regular work routine, don’t force yourself. Taking a break from your regular routine can help you to acknowledge and examine all that you are going through.

A new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center found that a tool commonly used by doctors to estimate the risk of a woman’s breast cancer returning after surgery is not very effective at explaining risk to patients.

As a result, women with breast cancer may not find these tools helpful when deciding whether to have chemotherapy.

The tool itself is very useful to doctors, many of whom print out information from this tool and give it to patients when they are discussing chemotherapy.

Nearly all women diagnosed with early stage breast cancer will have surgery, but many will also consider chemotherapy to help prevent the cancer from coming back.

“The main benefit of additional treatments such as chemotherapy after surgery is long-term risk reduction. But chemotherapy does not provide much benefit for some women, and those women can potentially avoid unnecessary side effects by skipping chemotherapy.

So understanding how large or small the risk reduction is can help women make the right choice,” says lead study author Brian Zikmund-Fisher, Ph.D., research assistant professor of general medicine at the U-M Medical School and a researcher at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.

Do you suffer from frequent abdominal pain? Being a woman, it is quite common to feel discomfort in the lower abdomen from time to time during menstruation.

However, persistent or frequent abdominal pain can imply other health problems such as kidney problems, bowel problems involving reproductive organs like fallopian tubes and ovaries.

If you want to ensure your abdominal pain gets the correct treatment, identify the main cause behind the pain first.

Abdominal pain arising from urinary system

If you suffer from pain in your urinary system, it can indicate bladder problems such as cystitis, kidney stones or inflammation of one or both kidneys.

If you have urinary infections, you may experience burning sensation while passing urine, in addition to abdominal pain.

Pain in lower right abdomen

Besides inflammation of the bowel or appendicitis, pain in the lower right abdomen can also be caused by an ectopic pregnancy or hernia.

Bloating or swelling of the lower abdomen also represents various abnormal intestinal conditions, such as irritable bowel syndrome which causes severe abdominal pain.

Pain in navel area

If you are experiencing pain near the bellybutton, it can indicate inflammation to the appendix or a small intestine disorder.

Is there any link between progesterone and miscarriage? Many scientists believe that progesterone plays a vital role in miscarriage and also in pregnancy.

Progesterone is most important hormone of pregnancy and menstrual cycle.

Level of progesterone rises every month and prepares your uterine lining for pregnancy.

As progesterone is linked with pregnancy and miscarriage, some doctors believe that low levels of progesterone during pregnancy can lead to miscarriage.

Is it really true?

Even though low levels of progesterone can lead to miscarriage, but it is not progesterone that is entirely responsible for miscarriage.

Unfortunately, many women believe that low level of progesterone is main cause behind their miscarriage and undergo treatments for low levels of progesterone. As a result, they are experiencing recurrent miscarriage.

So, it is very important for you to realize that low progesterone levels are not the only reason for miscarriage. There are many other factors including low progesterone level that causes miscarriage.

What are those other factors?

Most miscarriages take place due to abnormal development of fetus. Even the genes or chromosomes of the fetus play a vital role in miscarriage.

Menstrual cramps and disturbing PMS symptoms are most common problems among females of reproductive age.

Fortunately, it is quite possible to get better relief from these disturbing menstrual problems, particularly menstrual cramps, using essential oils.

How to use essential oil for managing menstrual cramps?

Almond, rosemary and lavender essential oils can help you greatly to relieve menstrual cramps. The preparation is quite easy for this mixture.

Take 2 ounces of sweet almond oil and add 15 drops of rosemary oil to it. Now, to this mixture, add 15 drops of lavender oil. Stir or shake it well until oils get mixed well. Place the oil mixture in a container and keep it aside.

Now take a container and add water to it. Boil water thoroughly. After that, keep boiling water in a thick cup that doesn’t melt or break to heat. Now, put the container with essential oil mixture in boiling water container and again heat the container. This method is called double boiling.

Once you notice that oil mixture is warmed up, pour the oil mixture over flannel cloth and then lie down relaxingly on your bed. Now, place the warm essential oiled cloths over your lower abdomen that covers uterus and ovaries.