Doctors Say Your Menstrual Cycle Is Your Fifth "Vital Sign"
Lisa Hendrickson-Jack, a certified Fertility Awareness Educator and author of “The Fifth Vital Sign: Master Your Cycles & Optimize Your Fertility,” believes that we as women view our menstrual cycles the way we would shop at a car dealership.
“I could get the car with air conditioning, or I could get the car without air conditioning,” she explains. “Or I could get it with heated seats or without heated seats, and it wouldn’t affect engine functioning. And somehow, we think of our ovaries that way. We think that we can turn them on and off with hormonal birth control, or if our cycle stops for whatever reason, we kind of think that it doesn’t affect our regular functioning because we kind of think that our ovarian function and our menstrual cycle is only related to having kids.”