ItalStallion,
That is an excellent update. Well done.
For younger women, I would like to add a bit of advice from both personal and professional perspectives. For the first several years of menstruating, the period tends to be quite erratic. My first one (at 12) was little more than spotting; two weeks later, a fairly full flow; then waited and waited. Over six weeks later, another one and then two weeks later and so on. Puberty and adolescence is a time of rebalancing hormones and it takes the body a while to get it right.
As long as the period is erratic, so is ovulation. When you read about when ovulation occurs, that is for a woman with her hormones stabilized and a regular period. Teens are at higher risk for unwanted pregnancy because you never know when they are fertile. You may even become pregnant during your period. Breast development is continuing and often women do not reach their full size until twenty or so. I added a full cup after I was 20. Other body development may be continuing as well - hips, shoulder slope, hair growth.
Teen women still need nutrients to assist in this continued growth. They need the same nutrients that a baby would need in their womb. Teen pregnancies take a serious toll on both mother and child because they are competing for the same food supply. The result is underweight babies and stunted mothers. Both have problems in ater life.
The development of the genitals, though invisible, is also important. At the beginning, the vaginal walls are rather thin and inelastic and dry. By the end of the several year process the walls of the vagina have thickened and become very elastic with a natural lubrication usually there in small amounts and lots more "on call." The vagina, then, is also maturing. The entrance of a penis may be no big deal early in maturation but getting a baby out through a rather non-stretchy vagina is a real problem.
Stallion has given you an excellent time-line. You notice how broad some of the ranges are because we each develop at our own rate. I thought I would never get breasts! And, more importantly, there are greater risks in sex than we think when our bodies seem to have matured.
Brandye
Posted: 30 Sep 20:59