11347 IUPAC Gold Book - uterine cycle 10.1351/goldbook.11347 11347 current 1 Regular, periodic changes that occur in the uterus and, together with the ovarian cycle constitute the menstrual cycle necessary for female fertility. The uterine cycle consists of three phases: i) menstruation, ii) a proliferative phase in which the uterine wall thickens under the influence of estrogen, and iii) a secretory phase in which the corpus luteum is producing progesterone and the endometrium becomes receptive to implantation of the blastocyst. The three phases of the uterine cycle correspond to the three phases of the ovarian cycle. blastocyst https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/10462 corpus luteum https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/10560 endometrium https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/10660 estrogen https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/10680 fertility https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/10710 implantation https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/10841 menstrual cycle https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/10936 menstruation https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/10937 ovarian cycle https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/11055 progesterone https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/11136 uterus https://goldbook.iupac.org//terms/view/11350 PAC, 2016, 88, 713. 'Glossary of terms used in developmental and reproductive toxicology (IUPAC Recommendations 2016)' on page 818 (https://doi.org/10.1515/pac-2015-1202) https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/11347/html https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/11347/json https://goldbook.iupac.org/terms/view/11347/plain Citation: 'uterine cycle' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351/goldbook.11347 The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) for individual terms. If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org . The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using. 2026-07-12T08:37:18+00:00