Lively Women Q&A: What Happens to Your Eggs When You Don’t Ovulate?
May 25, 2007 by Kristen King
Filed under Women's Health
This article has a correction posted May 15, 2008.
In response to yesterday’s post about the new FDA-approved, no-period birth control pill Lybrel, Alicia asked this question in the comment trail:
What exactly happens to your egg(s) when birth control pills prevent ovulation?
That’s a great question. First of all, let’s be clear on two important facts about the female body:
- You’re born with all of the eggs you’ll ever need–millions of them, just chilling in your ovaries until menarche.
- Ovulation refers to the actual release of the egg from the ovary into the fallopian tube, not the production of the egg.
Second, let’s be clear on what happens to eggs that aren’t fertilized and gestated when you’re not taking birth control.
- At ovulation, the egg is released and travels down the fallopian tube to the uterus.
- If it’s not fertilized, it simply disintegrates and is absorbed by the lining of the uterus.*
Logically, then, if birth control prevents ovulation from releasing the egg into the fallopian tube, it would eventually just break down and be asorbed back into the body in the uterus. But does that play out scientifically?
From Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania:
Your eggs are just hanging out in your ovaries until they are called upon. Not ovulating doesn’t do any damage to your body, including your eggs.
They don’t all “expire” at the same time, but your eggs have been dying since you were in your mother’s womb.
Girl fetuses have eggs, in fact we have the most eggs (5-7 million) ever when we are still inside our mom developing. A lot of those eggs die before we are even born and they continue to die throughout our life. By the time most of us reach puberty we have about 400,000 eggs left. Which is more than enough!
Some of those eggs get used, some die and some even survive menopause. Really, menopause is sort of an expiration date for the eggs that have made it that far. There may be a few still holding out, but we won’t use them after menopause.
The medical term for this process is atresia, which Stedman’s Medical Dictionary defines as “The degeneration and resorption of one or more ovarian follicles before maturation.”
So, the short answer (after that long one!) is that if the egg isn’t fertilized or if it isn’t even released, the same thing happens: it just gets absorbed back into the body. Amazing, huh?
Contents © Copyright 2007 Kristen King
Planned Parenthood is not the best sole source of complete information when they have a vested interest in what women believe to be the facts about their bodies.
Ova do not just sit around chilling in the ovaries waiting for menarche to call them to function. Anyone who has takes basic human A+P in college should be learning that the ova are doing behind the scenes environment setting that makes girls girls long before the menses begin. And even once they become established and the ova start maturing several are stimulated to maturing process, which seems to have a role in the hormonal environment, but once one leaves its sack the others usually don’t progress to the leave stage and degrade to serve other purposes.
The problem with no periods is not the flow or lack there of or the availability of a mature ovum but rather what happens to the female physiology and often emotional-psychology which has set its rhythms based on this cyclical hormone-bathed environment. Do we not remember the women who died in the early years of estrogen popping to control female symptoms including pregnancy?
While it’s true that PP has a, shall we say, defined viewpoint on certain women’s health issues, I’ve found absolutely nothing that in any way indicates that the information they provided on this topic is inaccurate. The context in which the info is provided may present an agenda, but the fact that unreleased, immature eggs and mature, unfertilized eggs are reabsorbed into the body and that it in and of itself is not particularly detrimental in specific ways is not going to change.
That being said, any time you induce a bodily function that’s not naturally occurring, there is certainly some element of risk, however nebulous. But look at it this way: Women who are professional athletes often don’t ovulate for years, and sometimes they never do depending on their percentage body fat. Their lack of ovulation is not chemically induced, but it has the same physiological result of eggs deteriorating when they reach the end of their shelf life and being reabsorbed into the body. What the other, more widespread results may be, I can’t say, but the fate of the eggs is the same.
kk
Thanks so much for the research, Kristen! Honestly, I’m resting a bit easier now that I know all those years I took the Pill I wasn’t just “incarcerating” my eggs for another time, lol.
While PP may have their motives, I doubt they’re going to present innacurate information about our bodies. That’s just dangerous. I wonder if there is any kind of power-that-be that…not regulates, but makes sure such organizations present accurate health information?
In any event, thanks again!
why does a women not have eggs in her ovaries?
I have a question – I was confused by the statement:
“Logically, then, if birth control prevents ovulation from releasing the egg into the fallopian tube, it would eventually just break down and be asorbed back into the body in the uterus.”
because the egg must travel down the fallopian tube in order to reach the uterus. So how does it get “logically … asorbed back into the body in the uterus” if it was never released into the fallopian tube?
What determines the ’shelf life’ of an egg? If it is not released into the falopian tube how does your body decide which egg to absorb? Do they have some sort of voting system? lol.
the last two questions are what came to my mind too…if all the eggs were born together when we are being made then which one gets absorbed…egg voting system made me laugh by the way LOL!!!
What happen when you dont ovulate? Does its prevent one 4rm getting pregnant in further
Hello everyone:
I am 49 years old and I have always wanted to get pregnant with the man I love. For economic reasons and differences of opinions I lost the best time of my life to get pregnant. Now with so many advances in science, I wander if there is still hope for me. I have not had any period in about 2 years or more. I have been told that I am in menopause and have a small cyst in my right ovary. I have been to fertility clinics and the first doctor told me that he was going to have to run some tests. He did and I was not satisfied with his answer. I felt very uncomfortable going to him because while I was trying to get sonograms done he used me as a “guinea pig” in the room for another intern to learn about my organs without my permission. I had no choice but to let them finish doing what they were doing. I stopped going to him and later on found out that the Doctor had a brain tumor and had passed away. I decided to go to a second fertility doctor and she advised me to undergo IVF with an egg donor just before even an appointment was made. Tests were done after that and she found out that my FSH levels were high and I did not feel any empathy towards me from her. She later on told me that I was on perimenopause. A year went by and I was 48 years of age. I took another chance and went to this wanderful doctor who was very caring and had helped me and my husband to go through this issue together. He had perform tests where both my husband and I have been together in the patient’s room. I knew that I was in good hands. He told me that I had some eggs left in my left ovary and that he was going to do his best to help me and care for me during my pregnancy if it happend. He found a small cyst that has not grown any size at all, gave me a hormone test to see if my ovary would create more eggs but he said that nothing happened. I am still hopeful and just somehow might be living in a dream but I feel deep inside my heart that I can still get pregnant after all of this. I also had to go through therapy for the egg donors but I do not want to undergo egg donors pregnancy treatment.
If there is anyone who has been through this situation or similar please get back to me. Any support will help me cope with this situation.
Thanks
Caro