Menstrual cycle hormone levels by day

Reference values for the four hormones that run the cycle, from 20 women who gave blood every day of one cycle. Each hormone has its own page with a chart and the full day-by-day table, in US and SI units.

Progesterone levels Median peaks at 13.35 ng/mL on day +7, day 21 of a 28-day cycle.
Estradiol levels Median peaks at 255.9 pg/mL on day −1, with a lower luteal peak on day +7.
LH levels Median surges to 41.19 mIU/mL on day 0, from 12.36 the day before.
FSH levels Median 6.42 mIU/mL early in the cycle, peaking at 12.82 on day 0.

What are normal hormone levels during the menstrual cycle?

Stricker and colleagues pooled every sample in each phase. In the early follicular phase, days −15 to −6 from the LH peak, the medians were LH 3.96 mIU/mL, FSH 6.42 mIU/mL, estradiol 40.8 pg/mL and progesterone 0.20 ng/mL. In the mid-luteal phase, days +5 to +9, they were 3.88, 3.14, 135.1 and 11.40.

Each phase at a glance

Pooled median of each hormone in each phase, Stricker and colleagues (2006), Table 2
Phase	Days from the LH peak	LH	FSH	Estradiol		Progesterone
Phase	Days from the LH peak	mIU/mL	mIU/mL	pg/mL	pmol/L	ng/mL	nmol/L
Early follicular	Days −15 to −6	3.96	6.42	40.8	149.74	0.20	0.64
Late follicular	Days −5 to −1	5.68	4.66	122.7	450.49	0.20	0.64
LH peak	Day 0	41.19	12.82	182.8	671.06	0.80	2.54
Early luteal	Days +1 to +4	7.86	5.62	85.4	313.42	4.30	13.67
Mid-luteal	Days +5 to +9	3.88	3.14	135.1	495.82	11.40	36.25
Late luteal	Days +10 to +14	2.75	2.85	89.2	327.36	4.40	13.99

Each phase figure is the median of every sample taken in that phase, pooled, which is why it is not the median of the daily medians. LH and FSH carry the same number in IU/L as in mIU/mL.

How the days are counted

Each woman’s days are counted from her own LH peak, day 0, which daily blood samples can date in any ovulatory cycle. The days after the peak keep a steadier schedule than the days before it, so counting from the first day of bleeding instead would line the women up at the start of the cycle and blur them apart at its middle.

The column for a 28-day cycle puts the LH peak on day 14, as the simulator does by default, so day 1 of the cycle is day −13 here and day 21 is day +7. Days −15 and −14 have no place in such a cycle and come from women whose follicular phase ran longer. Of 612,613 cycles tracked in an app by Bull and colleagues (2019), only 13 percent were 28 days long. The mean cycle was 29.3 days, with a follicular phase of 16.9 days (middle 95 percent 10 to 30) and a luteal phase of 12.4 days (7 to 17), and FIGO counts 24 to 38 days as normal.

Where the numbers come from

Stricker and colleagues (2006) took blood from 20 women aged 20 to 36, with normal cycles and no hormonal contraception, on every day of one cycle, and measured all four hormones on an Abbott ARCHITECT analyzer in one laboratory. Each woman’s days are counted from her own LH peak, day 0, and each figure is the median of the women sampled that day.

The tables were read from the authors’ own copy of the paper, and every figure was checked against the independent transcription behind Häggström’s reference range charts.

The menstrual cycle hormone simulator joins these medians into curves and lays them out on a cycle of the length you choose, with the follicle and the lining drawn day by day.

Source: Stricker R and colleagues, “Establishment of detailed reference values for luteinizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone, estradiol, and progesterone during different phases of the menstrual cycle on the Abbott ARCHITECT analyzer”, Clin Chem Lab Med 2006;44(7):883-887.