A normal cycle lasts 28 days. Are you normal?

The normal cycle – A compilation of the facts

1. Only 30% of women are normal!

Let’s do an honest recount… Who has a textbook 28-day cycle? And then also ovulates on the 14th day? That’s right, few of us women.

A study at the University of Leipzig found that 70 percent of the participating test subjects ovulated after the 15th or before the 13th day of the cycle. In 5 percent of the women, the time of ovulation was even after the 27th day.

This means that almost 70% of the women were outside the expected ovulation time (day 14), but still had a healthy biphasic (i.e., with ovulation) cycle.

Of all the cycles studied with ovulation, the shortest cycle had a length of 20 days and the longest had a length of 58 days. Of all the studied cycles without ovulation, the shortest cycle had a length of 20 days and the longest cycle had a length of 77 days.

In addition, it was observed that besides a great variability of cycles, each woman also has an individual cycle pattern – similar to a fingerprint. So nothing with a textbook cycle! Somehow logical, isn’t it?

2. So, what is normal?

Normal or healthy is a biphasic cycle, i.e. a cycle with ovulation and a sufficiently long second half of the cycle (length > 10 days), also called the gel body phase.

A cycle is also normal if it is monophasic, i.e. without ovulation. This can happen from time to time. Only after three consecutive anovulatory cycles a cycle disorder can be present. Please talk to your gynecologist about it then.

How to find out when and how you ovulate, click here.