Emera suggests [the reason why women menstruate] is entirely evolutionary, and involves maternal-fetal conflict. The mother and fetus have an adversarial relationship: mom’s best interest is to survive pregnancy to bear children again, and so her body tries to conserve resources for the long haul. The fetus, on the other hand, benefits from wresting as much from mom as it can, sometimes to the mother’s detriment. The fetus, for instance, manipulates the mother’s hormones to weaken the insulin response, so less sugar is taken up by mom’s cells, making more available for the fetus.
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Menstruation is a consequence of self-defense. Females build up that thickened uterine lining to protect and insulate themselves from the greedy embryo and its selfish placenta. In species with especially invasive embryos, it’s too late to wait for the moment of implantation — instead, they build up the wall pre-emptively, before and in case of fertilization. Then, if fertilization doesn’t occur, the universal process of responding to declining progesterone levels by sloughing off the lining occurs.
Bonus! Another process that goes on is that the lining of the uterus is also a sensor for fetal quality, detecting chromosomal abnormalities and allowing them to be spontaneously aborted early. There is some evidence for this: women vary in their degree of decidualization, and women with reduced decidualization have been found to become pregnant more often, but also exhibit pregnancy failure more often. So having a prepared uterus not only helps to fend off overly-aggressive fetuses, it allows mom a greater ability to be selective in which fetuses she carries to term.
- 4 votes
I knew those rascally little fetuses were up to no good. Like little parasites sucking the llife from
the host. Hey, I'm just kidding. Evolution is a great thing. I never could have any kids, so I hope
I am at least healthier for it.sarc/ Hormones, Those are the real devils. As teenagers reeling
from the overproduction of hormones try to deal with the pressures of adulthood, WOW that
brings back memories. Oh well I hope abstinance works, because that may be all women have
left if the right gets their way, well some on the right anyway.
- 3 votes
If women really did practice abstinance unless they wanted a child, men would be really upset, wouldn't they? Most women want two or fewer children, which would mean men would be having a love affair with their hand about 99.9% of their adult life.
- 2 votes
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