Clinical Aspects of Menstruation

menstruation is the periodic discharge of blood, mucus, and cellular debris from the uterine mucosa. Menses occur at more or less regular, cyclical, and predictable intervals from menarche to menopause except during pregnancy, lactation, anovulation, or pharmacological intervention. It is convenient and more descriptive to use the term menstruation to refer to the bleeding that accompanies progesterone withdrawal after ovulation with nonfertile cycles, and to refer to other episodes of endometrial hemorrhage in nonpregnant women as uterine or endometrial bleeding.