At this stage in my life — moving into my late 30s, with many friends rounding the corner into their 40s — I’m starting to hear rumblings, rumors and some early ranting about peri-menopause, and I don’t particularly like it.
Although it means a winding up of your reproductive years and seems to signal getting, um, old, there’s no real reason for dread or alarm, says gynecologist Margery Gass, executive director of the nonprofit North American Menopause Society. “Peri-menopause is a normal and natural phase of a woman’s life — it’s not a deficiency state and it’s not a disease,” she says, noting that peri-menopause ends — and menopause begins — when a woman hasn’t had a period in a full year. Read full article.