A very thoughtful piece by Lisa Selin Davis who also wrote Puberty for the Middle-Aged. We are grateful to Lisa Selin Davis for linking to Women Living Better to allow more people to access information that helps them better understand this transition and feel less alone.
In this piece written in 2021, Dr. Stephanie Faubion shares some truths that are hard to fathom, articulate and understand. These will be come common place themes in the coming years but they weren’t when this article was published.
Dr. Faubion called out three truths:
1. There is a huge gap in terms of both provider and patient education about perimenopause and menopause.
2. There is not a cadre of health care providers that have the expertise to help women through this.
3. Menopause gets about an hour of coverage in medical school.
This is because the knowledge (i.e. the evidence base) about what women experience and why hasn’t been fully established. Pause there. Incredible, right? Women’s bodies have always gone through this transition but it’s still not well understood. Is it better than 20 years ago? For sure, but there is still a long way to go.
Here are the foundational studies that have been done. Look at when they started and how many women have been included.
