You start counting on the first day of your period.
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When you start your period if you have brown, old blood first you count those days as the first day of your 28 day menstrual cycle. You do not have to start counting day one when the blood is red.
Yes. From the first day of the last period you had - count forward 28 days (or when you expected to start). Day 29 would be 1 day late.
To calculate an estimated due date you should count from the very first day (the day you started bleeding) of your last menstrual period.
No, when counting your menstrual cycle day one is the first day of true bleeding. Brown discharge is spotting, small amouts of blood mixing with discharge as you start to bleed, but you don't count this as day one.
Day one of the menstrual cycle is THE DAY YOU START BLEEDING, THE DAY YOU START GETTING YOUR MENSTRUAL FLOW. This is the day you start counting your cycle, until you get the first day of the next period, this is, that is the fist day of that new cycle. DO NOT start counting from the last day of your period, that is a common mistake. It is important when you visit a physician to know when was your last menstrual period, so try and keep record of it in some form of agenda or excel page. When a doctor asks, "when was your last menstrual period?" he or she will count on you to remember this date, it is important health information and you should be responsible to remember it. He or she are expecting to hear the date of the FIRST DAY of your last, and therefore, most recent menstrual period. I'm a general physician, so, I'm telling you, for us, this is important.