Women fart roughly 15 times a day on average, the same baseline as men. Some people pass gas as few as a handful of times, while others hit 40 times daily, and both ends of that range are considered normal. The idea that women fart less than men is a social myth, not a biological reality. What does differ for women is that hormonal shifts throughout the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and menopause can push gas frequency and discomfort noticeably higher during certain phases of life.
What Counts as Normal
Most clinical sources place the average somewhere between 13 and 21 times per day, with 15 as a reasonable midpoint. The Cleveland Clinic notes the number can reach 25 on a given day without signaling any problem. Day-to-day variation is huge and depends mostly on what you ate, how much air you swallowed, and how active your gut bacteria are at any given time. If you feel like you’re gassy one day and barely notice it the next, that’s standard.
There’s no separate “female number.” Studies measuring actual flatus episodes in men and women have found no meaningful difference in frequency. The volume and smell of individual episodes can vary, but total daily count is comparable across sexes.
Why Hormones Change the Picture
Where women’s experience genuinely diverges from men’s is the hormonal cycle. Progesterone, which rises in the second half of the menstrual cycle (after ovulation), slows the movement of food through the digestive tract. When food sits longer in the intestines, bacteria have more time to ferment it, producing more gas. This is the mechanism behind what’s sometimes called “PMS belly,” that bloated, gassy feeling in the days before a period.
Estrogen has the opposite effect, speeding digestion up. So during the first half of your cycle, when estrogen is dominant, you may notice less bloating and gas. As estrogen drops and progesterone rises, the shift toward slower digestion can make it feel like you’re suddenly farting more, even if your diet hasn’t changed at all.
During menopause, both estrogen and progesterone decline overall, but the net effect on digestion tends to be slower transit. This predisposes many women to increased constipation, bloating, and gas compared to their premenopausal years.
Gas During Pregnancy
Pregnancy amplifies the progesterone effect dramatically. Progesterone levels climb steadily throughout all three trimesters, keeping digestion slow to maximize nutrient absorption for the fetus. The trade-off is significantly more gas production. As pregnancy progresses, the growing uterus physically crowds the intestines, slowing things down even further and increasing that bloated, pressurized feeling. Many pregnant women notice they’re passing gas far more frequently than usual, and this is entirely expected.
What Makes Gas Worse
Diet is by far the biggest controllable factor. The foods most likely to increase gas are those containing short-chain carbohydrates that your small intestine can’t fully break down. These molecules pass intact into the large intestine, where bacteria ferment them enthusiastically, producing hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and sometimes methane as byproducts. Common culprits include beans, lentils, onions, garlic, wheat, certain fruits (apples, pears, watermelon), and dairy products if you’re lactose intolerant.
Swallowed air also contributes. Eating quickly, drinking through straws, chewing gum, and talking while eating all increase the amount of air that reaches your intestines. Carbonated drinks add gas directly. Most of this swallowed air is nitrogen and oxygen, which don’t smell but do add to the total number of times you pass gas.
Why Some Gas Smells and Most Doesn’t
Over 99% of intestinal gas is odorless. It’s made up of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and methane, none of which have a noticeable smell. The stink comes from tiny amounts of hydrogen sulfide, the compound responsible for that rotten-egg odor. Certain gut bacteria produce hydrogen sulfide by breaking down sulfur-containing amino acids found in protein-rich foods like eggs, meat, and cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower). So a high-protein or cruciferous-heavy meal won’t necessarily make you fart more often, but the ones you do pass are more likely to smell.
When Gas Might Signal Something Else
There’s no hard clinical cutoff where a doctor says “that’s too many times.” Instead, the concern shifts when gas is accompanied by other symptoms: persistent bloating that doesn’t resolve, abdominal pain, changes in stool consistency, unintended weight loss, or blood in your stool. These patterns can point toward conditions like irritable bowel syndrome, food intolerances, celiac disease, or bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine.
If you’re unsure whether your gas is excessive or just feels that way, keeping a food and symptom diary for a week or two can be genuinely useful. Tracking what you eat alongside when you feel bloated or gassy helps identify specific triggers. It also gives a doctor something concrete to work with if you do seek help, since distinguishing between true excess gas and heightened sensitivity to normal gas levels is one of the first things they’ll try to sort out.