From a biological point of view, it seems quite strange that any organism would give up its ability to reproduce. Why would evolution make us give up the ability to leave more descendants? So why do humans have menopause? And what is menopause really?
Menopause is when a female organism naturally (with age) loses the ability to produce offspring – permanently. So in some way, that’s not so much of a meno-pause, but a meno-stop.
Menopause is a very rare phenomenon in the natural world. Only orcas, narwhals, beluga whales and short-finned pilot whales are known to experience somewhat of a “menopause”. Asian elephants also have something similar to it.
In humans, menopause happens around the age of 45-55. Technically, a female has gone through menopause when she had gone through 12 consecutive months without a menstrual period.
During menopause ovaries stop producing eggs and wind down their production of estrogen and progesterone – which is one of the most abrupt hormonal changes a person might experience in their life.
Some females describe their time after menopause as “finally feeling like myself”, while others need more time to adjust to the new way their body functions. Regardless of how the process plays out, menopause is a time of drastic (yet natural) changes in how a female’s body functions, which should be understood and appreciated.
The time leading up to menopause is called perimenopause and varies widely in time depending on the female. Some common symptoms of menopause and perimenopause include:
Some females may go through menopause quite smoothly while others can find the transition harder than they thought, with myriads of emotional and biological symptoms. Fortunately, there are things we can do to help. As menopause and perimenopause are often followed by fluctuations in hormonal levels, bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) can be a saviour, and help drastically improve the quality of life and smoothen the menopausal transition.
So why do females have to go through all these changes and fluctuations? Menopause might seem like quite a strange phenomenon. And scientists don’t really know why any animal goes through it. But they have some ideas.
Menopause is often linked to complex social structures (like in elephants, whales, and well, humans). It might be that in such scenarios, females (after menopause) play a vital role in the social structure. In whales menopausal grandmas can play the role of distributors of wisdom and knowledge, and often as helpers of the young. And in Asian elephants older females act as leaders of the group.
Perhaps those ideas can give us the inspiration to see menopause not as a loss of something, but as a transition to acquiring new crucial roles, and new values.
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