Functions of the Female Reproductive System

The female anatomy is designed to bring life into the world through pregnancy and childbirth. The reproductive organs in a woman's body each have their own specific functions and they also work as an interrelated system. The female reproductive system maintains the reproductive cycle through the production of female sex hormones.

Female Reproductive Organs

• The female reproductive system consists of internal and external parts of her body. The external parts include the labia majora and the labia minora, also called lips, that surround the vagina and urethra and protect the internal organs from infectious organisms. The internal parts include the vagina which has both the functions of enabling sperm to enter the woman's body and also serving as a birth canal. The uterus is the organ that carries a growing fetus and the cervix is the lower part that joins the uterus and the vagina. The ovaries produce ova, or eggs, and fallopian tubes allow eggs to travel into the uterus.

Menstruation

• The functions of the female reproductive system include regularly preparing a woman's body for a possible pregnancy. The hormonal activity is called menstruation and it involves the uterus shedding its lining each month which occurs in the follicular, ovalutory and luteal phases. The follicular phase occurs on the first day of menstruation and stimulates egg growth in the ovaries while the ovalutory phase is the ovaries releasing an egg into the fallopian tube. The luteal phase starts right after the ovalutory phase, or ovulation, and produces the hormone progesterone which prepares the uterus to implant a fertilized egg. If the egg is not fertilized by a man's sperm, it will pass through the uterus. The lining of the uterus will then break down and shed, and the next menstruation cycle begins.

Conception and Pregnancy

• If an egg released from the ovaries is fertilized by sperm, it will travel through the fallopian tube and implant itself in the uterus and the woman becomes pregnant. The functions of the female reproductive organs during pregnancy allow the egg, or embryo, to grow into a fetus inside the uterus as it expands in size to accommodate the developing baby. A woman carries the baby in her uterus, or womb, until the baby is ready to be born. When a woman's body depletes all of the eggs produced by the ovaries during the course of her lifetime, menopause begins and the ability to reproduce ends.