Natural Health and Herbal Remedies Blog

THE VAGINA, UTERUS AND OVARIES

Another change that happens in a girl’s body during puberty is that the sex organs on the inside of her body begin to develop and grow. The vagina gets longer, until it reaches its adult length of 75-127 mm (3-5 in). This still isn’t very large and as you may recall, the average penis is about 150 mm (6 in) long when it’s erect. But the vagina is very elastic and stretchy, so the penis can easily fit inside when a man and a woman are having sexual intercourse.

The uterus also gets larger during puberty, although even in a grown woman it is only about the size of a clenched fist. It, too, is very elastic and stretchy and can expand to accommodate a growing baby. Indeed, when a woman gives birth, both the uterus and vagina are stretched quite a bit.

The ovaries, the two egg-shaped organs on either side of the uterus, also grow larger during puberty. In grown women, they are about 38-50 mm (1 ½ -2 in) in size.

Just as a boy begins to make sperm in his testicles for the first time during puberty, so girls begin producing the first fully mature ova in their ovaries at this time. But unlike males, who are constantly making new sperm in their bodies, females have all the ova they’ll ever have when they’re born. They don’t make new ova every day. The ova they have when they’re born are not fully mature or ripe, however. The first ovum doesn’t fully ripen and leave the ovary until after a girl has started puberty and begun to develop pubic hair and breasts.

During puberty a girl ovulates for the first time. A ripe ovum leaves her ovary; in fact, it pops right off. This process of a ripe ovum popping off the ovary is called ovulation. As soon as the ovum pops off, the fringed ends of the Fallopian tubes reach out like tiny fingers to grasp the ovum and pull it into the tube. The Fallopian tubes are very tiny, no bigger round than a strand of spaghetti and only about 100 mm (4 in) long. The inside of each Fallopian tube is lined with tiny hairs, which are connected to the muscles in the walls of the tubes. The muscles contract and relax rhythmically. This causes the tiny hairs to sway back and forth and to sweep the ovum along the length of the tube towards the uterus.

If a girl has sexual intercourse at just about the time she releases her first ripe ovum, and if the male has ejaculated sperm into her vagina, it’s possible that one of his sperm could swim through her uterus, into her Fallopian tubes, and meet and fertilize her first ripe ovum. But this doesn’t usually happen. For one thing, most girls ovulate and produce their first ripe ovum when they’re only about 13, and most girls of this age don’t have sexual intercourse.

Even if a girl did have sexual intercourse about the time that she released her first ovum from her ovary, and a sperm met it in the Fallopian tube, the ovum probably wouldn’t be fertilized by the sperm. The first ovum isn’t really a fully mature one. It’s sort of a ‘practice’ ovum. It’s possible for one of these ‘practice’ ova to be fertilized, but it’s very unusual. Usually, then, a girl’s first ovum travels to the uterus without being fertilized. After a few days of floating round inside the uterus, the ovum simply disintegrates.

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