If you plan to get pregnant some day and experience any of the signs listed below, you should consider consulting with your gynecologist to rule out any possible conditions that may require treatment:

• Anovulation

It’s normal for women to occasionally not ovulate in any given cycle, with causes ranging from illness and stress to coming off the pill or breastfeeding. But if you rarely ovulate, you should definitely determine the cause.

Intense menstrual cramps

It’s normal for women to have mild to moderate menstrual cramps, but if you find that it’s unbearable or impacts your life on those days, you will want to rule out something more serious, such as endometriosis, fibroids, or a condition called adenomyosis, in which parts of the uterine lining penetrate its muscular wall instead.

Short luteal phases of less than 10 days

The phase of the cycle before ovulation, the Follicular Phase, may vary from cycle to cycle. But the phase after ovulation, called the Luteal Phase, is consistent for each individual woman , usually not varying by more than a few days on either side of 14 days. If you consistently have luteal phases less than 10 days, you will want to treat it to avoid having miscarriages.

More than two days of premenstrual spotting or postmenstrual brown bleeding

It is normal for women to have a day or two of spotting before actually starting their period with bright red bleeding. However, if you notice that you consistently have several days of spotting before your period, or have quite a few days of brown spotting following your period, it may be an indication of something such as low progesterone or endometriosis.

Irregular or no cycles, often accompanied by extra weight, acne, excess body hair, and excessive fertile-quality cervical fluid 

The symptoms above are some of the classic signs of a condition called PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome). The sooner you learn about it, the sooner you can treat it, because it has far-ranging effects on all aspects of your health, but women often don’t realize they have it until they have problems getting pregnant.