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Medicine Science

Women's Periods May Be Late After Coronavirus Vaccination, Study Suggests (nytimes.com) 47

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Shortly after coronavirus vaccines were rolled out about a year ago, women started reporting erratic menstrual cycles after receiving the shots. Some said their periods were late. Others reported heavier bleeding than usual or painful bleeding. Some postmenopausal women who hadn't had a period in years even said they had menstruated again. A study published on Thursday found that women's menstrual cycles did indeed change following vaccination against the coronavirus (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). The authors reported that women who were inoculated had slightly longer menstrual cycles after receiving the vaccine than those who were not vaccinated.

Their periods themselves, which came almost a day later on average, were not prolonged, however, and the effect was transient, with cycle lengths bouncing back to normal within one or two months. For example, someone with a 28-day menstrual cycle that starts with seven days of bleeding would still begin with a seven-day period, but the cycle would last 29 days. The cycle ends when the next period starts and would revert to 28 days within a month or two. The delay was more pronounced in women who received both vaccine doses during the same menstrual cycle. These women had their periods two days later than usual, the researchers found. [...] One serious drawback of the study, which focused on U.S. residents, is that the sample is not nationally representative and cannot be generalized to the population at large. The data were provided by a company called Natural Cycles that makes an app to track fertility. Its users are more likely to be white and college educated than the U.S. population overall; they are also thinner than the average American woman -- weight can affect menstruation -- and do not use hormonal contraception.
"I want to make sure we dissuade people from those untrue myths out there about fertility effects," said Dr. Hugh Taylor, the chair of the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Yale School of Medicine. "A cycle or two where periods are thrown off may be annoying, but it's not going to be harmful in a medical way."

With that said, postmenopausal women who experience vaginal bleeding or spotting, whether after vaccination or not, should be evaluated by a physician, says Dr. Taylor. It may be a sign they have a serious medical condition.
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Women's Periods May Be Late After Coronavirus Vaccination, Study Suggests

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  • Hmm.. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 )

    How punctual is the period of someone who's dead from coronavirus?

  • that requires anesthesia for some reason.

  • by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Friday January 07, 2022 @05:17PM (#62153507)

    In May, reports were coming in worldwide [bbc.co.uk] from women whose periods were affected after receiving a vaccine. At the time it was considered a short-term side effect without any other issues, just as what happens to some women who get the flu and HPV vaccines.

    In August, when reports continued to come in [npr.org], the data improved though it couldn't be said vaccines were the exclusive cause.

    All this study is saying they've had over a year to look the data and it does look like one mild side effect (like a sore arm) is a change in women's period. As was said in the first link above:

    The womb lining is part of the immune system - in fact there are immune cells in almost every part of the body.

    Immune cells play a role in building up, maintaining and breaking down the lining of the uterus - which thickens to prepare for a pregnancy, and then sheds in the form of a period if the egg is not fertilised.

    After vaccination, lots of chemical signals which have the potential to affect immune cells are circulating round the body. This could cause the womb lining to shed, and lead to spotting or earlier periods, Dr Male explained.

    In other words, not a big deal though something to be aware of.

    • by fazig ( 2909523 )
      Even the summary says that the data acquisition of the study is quite flawed due to selection bias of the app that was used to mine the data from.

      According to this study which has been out for a while: https://jamanetwork.com/journa... [jamanetwork.com]

      The Center for Population Research collected 30,655 recorded menstrual cycles from 2,316 women. Ninety-five percent of all cycles were between 15 and 45 days long. The mean and standard deviations for the total number of cycles were 29.1 and 7.46, respectively. Cycle lengths

      • Yeah, we know that there are a tonne of things that can alter a woman's cycle temporarily. Stress, changes in diet, medications, lack of sleep and on and on.
    • ... one mild side effect (like a sore arm) is a change in women's period.

      Surely every guy here knows a change in a woman's cycle can have the side effect of a sore arm...

  • The late menstruation is just a symptom. What changed in women's reproductive system (mostly the ovaries)? What other effects will that change produce?
  • May be. maybe. maybe not.

  • It's of course well known that vaccines induce an immune system response (which varies from person to person) as that's their purpose.

    Given that on the average people seem to report easily discernible immune system response "symptoms" such as fever of perhaps one day in duration from the SARS-CoV-2 vaccines deployed in the U.S., how do similar immune responses due to minor naturally occurring infections affect menstrual cycles?

    That seems to be the appropriate comparison as well as comparing the severity of

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