[Menarche of young girls and tolerance of hormonal contraceptives-results of a field study of 33,000 cases (author's transl)].

A field study was undertaken into an oral contraceptive with medium oestrogen content for the purpose of finding out from 13,603 women, aged below 20 years, if correlations with relevance to counselling existed between the age of menarche and acceptance of hormonal contraceptives. Cycles of 34 days and more were recorded from probands in whom menarche had occurred above the age 14 twice as often they had been recordable from probands with early menarche, that is below the age of twelve. Shortened cycles in response to hormonal cycles in response to hormonal contraception were most often recorded from the late-menarche group. -The trend towards heavier withdrawal bleedings and more frequent spottings in women with late menarche should be taken into account, when oral contraceptives are first prescribed. -Growing menarche age was found to be accompanied by growing incidence of mental depression and headache of women who were on the pill. The number of adolescent women with late menarche who reported weight gains in excess of 2 kg was higher than the number of probands with early menarche. Weight gains over the first three months on the pill in the adolescent group were three times as often as in the whole group. -More women with early menarche reported increase in libido. Young women with late menarche wished more of than others to discontinue oral contraception, which seemed to suggest the existence of psychosocial differences between the two groups. The recorded trend towards declining acceptance of oral contraceptives along with growing menarche age may be used for orientation in counselling.