Extremely light period why

If you are breast-feeding, your periods may not come back immediately after you give birth. The milk production hormone prevents ovulation and delays your period from returning. You may get your period months after giving birth if you are breast-feeding. You can still get pregnant while breast-feeding, even if your period has not yet returned. Hormonal birth control may be the cause of a light period. Some birth control methods prevent an egg from releasing in your body.

These methods come in various forms, including:. This can result in lighter periods or skipped periods altogether.

You may also experience irregular periods if you have started or stopped taking birth control recently. You may experience skipped or lighter periods because of it. Once a stressful event passes, your periods should return to normal.

Women who exercise frequently may experience changes to their period. Athletes can be under stress, have low body weight, and use a lot of body energy. This can result in altered periods. Anorexia nervosa and bulimia are types of eating disorders that may cause irregular periods. Eating disorders can lead to low body weight, which can alter hormones that regulate your period.

This causes a hormonal change in your body where your eggs stop maturing. Your doctor can diagnose PCOS through the use of an ultrasound. If you have PCOS, your doctor will likely recommend that you lose weight and take contraceptive pills to help your period return to normal. Your doctor may also prescribe metformin Glumetza, Riomet, Glucophage. This medication is usually prescribed for people with type 2 diabetes , but it is sometimes used off-label to treat people with PCOS.

It helps control insulin levels and may help to improve ovulation, which can regulate your menstrual cycle. However, a doctor can still use the drug for that purpose. This is because the FDA regulates the testing and approval of drugs, but not how doctors use drugs to treat their patients.

So, your doctor can prescribe a drug however they think is best for your care. Learn more: Off-label prescription drug use: What you need to know ». A study of stress and menstrual problems in health science students found a correlation between how stressed the women felt and their experience of abnormal bleeding and irregular periods. Stress may also cause functional hypothalamic amenorrhea FHA , affecting about FHA disrupts interaction between the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and ovaries.

Suppression of several hormones in this system leads to low estrogen levels and prevents thickening of the uterine lining. FHA may produce no bothersome symptoms beyond stopping periods, but the hormone disruption can cause long term problems. When women spend more energy exercising than they take in through diet, reproductive, bone, and cardiovascular health can suffer. This phenomenon has been recognized in participants of sports that emphasize smaller body size, lean body composition, and endurance think ballet, long distance running, gymnastics, and swimming.

Not just elite athletes are at risk, though. Any woman who significantly increases her energy expenditure can notice menstrual changes such as lighter periods. Polycystic ovary syndrome PCOS affects 5 to 10 percent of women of reproductive age. PCOS is named for the bumpy cysts covering the ovaries. High levels of androgens reproductive hormones that are usually higher in males prevent ovulation. If you have a history of unpredictable periods along with these other symptoms, ask your doctor about PCOS:.

Symptoms of PCOS can be treated with hormonal birth control, insulin-sensitizing drugs, and anti-androgens. These other conditions can also cause period irregularities :. Anyone can experience menstrual changes due to these and other causes. These factors make it more likely to happen:. If more serious concerns are ruled out, the doctor may prescribe hormonal birth control to regulate your periods. If you experience any unusual for you vaginal bleeding, make note of other symptoms to share with a healthcare provider.

Many causes are temporary, treatable, or manageable. Blood stains on clothing from menstruation is a frustration for many. Uterine fibroids are more common in Black women. Black women are also more likely to experience severe symptoms like heavy periods and have symptoms…. Antibiotics aren't likely causing your late period, but it may be affecting other parts of your body that influence your menstrual cycle. Here's how…. Irregular periods can happen for many reasons, and can sometimes signal an underlying health issue.

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List of Partners vendors. A lighter period than normal can be caused by many things, including pregnancy, stress, illness, and other things.

Sometimes a woman will have spotting and think her period is about to start and not see any more bleeding. This can be implantation bleeding, which is the earliest sign of pregnancy, that is sometimes mistaken for a menstrual cycle. It can also be that your period simply is lighter that month. There are numerous reasons that your cycle might be different. Here are a few of the common ones. If you experience any form of an abnormal period, take a pregnancy test. A pregnancy test is the best way to tell if you are pregnant or not.

This method is not expensive. Pregnancy is the most likely cause of something being different in your cycle, particularly if you have not been using birth control. To get the best results, it might be best to wait until you miss your next period. This can be a home pregnancy test or a pregnancy test from your healthcare provider, midwife, or health department. In most cases, you do not have to notify anyone of the test or the results.

Even if you know you're pregnant, if you had a lighter-than-normal period, you should tell your healthcare provider or midwife.