Menarche defines the onset ofmenstruation, which is a normal physiologic process that occurs at regular monthly intervals.
Menarche typically occurs around age 12 but a few years earlier or later is completely normal.
Menarche happens during a time of physical and sexual maturation in adolescence known aspuberty.

Alys Tomlinson / Getty Images
The Onset of Menarche
The onset of menarche is sort of predictable.
It is also a time when girls can become moodier and start to talk back to their parents.
A girls growth spurt typically happens a few months before menarche.
The timing of menarche is important.
This is not normal and needs further medical attention.
This is known as delayed menarche or primary amenorrhea.
Very rarely a girl could have a congenital absence of her uterus a condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauer Syndrome.
The onset of menarche marks the beginning of the reproductive years of a womans life.
Actually beginning just before the first menstrual period a girl has had her first ovulation.
It is actually that first ovulation that causes the first period or menarche.
Once a girl ovulates she can get pregnant.
Menarche is a normal process.
It is a point in time that begins a womans reproductive years.
In: StatPearls [Internet].
Updated April 15, 2019.
Teens Health from Nemours.All about periods.
McLean M, Davis AJ, Reindollar RH.Abnormalities of Female Pubertal Development.
In: Feingold KR, Anawalt B, Boyce A, et al., editors.
Endotext [Internet].
South Dartmouth (MA): MDText.com, Inc.
Updated August 19, 2015.
National Organization for Rare Disorders.Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser Syndrome.