hi everybody dr mike here in this video we're going to take a look at the female reproductive [Music] system now to begin with i think we should look at the external anatomy or the external genitalia also known as the volvo of the female reproductive system and then we'll move through and have a look at the female reproductive tract so when we look at the external anatomy a couple of things first of which you can see that we have what's called the mons pubis now the mons pubis is this fatty pad mons pubis is a fatty pad that overlays that of the pubic symphysis so the very front of the pubis itself we can see that there are two skin folds in actual fact there are two lots of two skin folds which we call the labia and the most external aspect is going to be called the labia majora labia majora which are two skin folds that basically begin at the mons pubis and they finish down at the perineum now the labia majora is homologous to that of the scrotum so they are skin folds and they have muscle in them similar to that of the dartos muscles of the scrotum itself then there are more internal skin folds that we call the labia minora labia minora and these skin folds move from the clitoris down to the vaginal orifice itself now what you'll find is that the mons pubis the labia majora labia minora and then as we start to move in to what we call the vestibule now the vestibule is the recess that sits within the skin folds of the labia majora okay the vestibule and what you find with the vestibule is it contains most superiorly that of the clitoris and the clitoris is highly innovative with sensory neurons so it is extremely sensitive and it plays a very important role when it comes to sexual arousal when it comes to female reproduction as we move down you'll find that there's the external urethral orifice external urethra urethral orifice which is obviously going to be where the urethra coming from the bladder moves through to move urine out of the body and then we've got the vaginal orifice itself vaginal orifice now the vaginal orifice as we can see here so here is the vagina it plays an extremely important role in separating out the external environment from the internal environment of the female reproductive tract really important and because of that it actually has a ph that's quite acidic and this is important to maintain the vagina when it comes to keeping it clean because again it's playing an important role separating the external from internal environment but because it's acidic any sperm that enters may be damaged or killed off and therefore that's why sperm moves through in semen which is slightly alkaline to neutralize the acid of the vagina now as we move from the vagina we get to that of the cervix cervix now cervix or cervical or cervical you've probably heard of being referred to as the neck here and that's what cervix means cervix means neck because the cervix is the neck of the uterus which we have here now the uterus is a muscular body and it comprises of a couple of important layers the two that i want you to be aware of is the most internal layer of the uterus which is a layer that thickens when a woman becomes pregnant and this is called the endometrium endometrium and then a thick muscular layer which is called the myometrium now the important role of the uterus and that of the endometrium is that when an egg becomes fertilized and then implants it implants in the uterus and specifically implants in the endometrium but the endometrium in a woman who's not pregnant is quite thin so during the process of fertilization the endometrium prepares itself it becomes thickened and more vascularized because of the important roles of estrogen and progesterone so it thickens vascularizes and that egg implants in the endometrium to nourish that fertilized egg the myometrium being this thick muscle is important for when that embryo is developed into and basically that embryo has developed into an unborn child and it's time for that child to be pushed out so this baby that's now developed when it's time full term baby needs to be pushed out because of the role of oxytocin it's going to contract the myometrium of the uterus and help push the baby out through the cervix through the vagina now as we can see we've got the top of the uterus which is called the fundus and it starts to enter these two tubes which are called the uterine tubes the uterine tubes also known as the fallopian tubes so the fallopian tubes carry both sperm and egg right now there's a couple of different areas the most the thinnest portion of the uterine tube is known as the isthmus and that's this area here and as it moves through you've got this region here called the ampulla and the ampulla in actual fact is the most common area for the sperm to fertilize the over more egg that's been pushed out by the ovary so when sperm enters the vagina it then has to swim through the cervix it has to swim through the uterus has to go through the isthmus has to go through most of the fallopian or uterine tubes and it's at the ampulla in which it'll fertilize the egg which means the egg or oocyte will be ovulated here from the ovary and move through to the ampulla okay so the end of the fallopian tube is called the infundibulum in infundibulum nice name infundibulum which has these little fingertip-like projections called fimbre when it's time for ovulation so for that egg to leave the ovary to go into the uterine tubes these fimbres swell and they play an important role in help moving that egg into the fallopian tubes which means that this structure here on both sides is that of the ovary and it's the ovary that contains the egg and ovulates that egg approximately every 28 days or every month extremely important now the ovary also plays important roles in hormone production so it plays a really important role in producing progesterone and estrogen really important role and both of these two hormones are important when it comes to producing maintaining that of the thickened endometrial lining so what we've worked through at the moment is the external anatomy of the female reproductive system which is called the vulva and the internal anatomy also known as the reproductive tract