Announcing the publication of our first scientific research paper.
The paper is a “scoping” review of the previous research about the Late Reproductive Stage (LRS) — the time before we skip periods and our menstrual cycle lengths (the days between periods) vary by 7 days or more — when we are said to have “regular” periods.
What we learned: Not much research has focused on the Late Reproductive Stage.
This research gap is why we conducted the 2020 WLB Survey to better understand and compare the symptom experience of those in the late reproductive stage with those in the menopausal transition (aka perimenopause). Many of you participated in this research to help fill this research gap.
The team behind this work is Dr. Nancy Woods, Dr. Marcie Richardson and Nina Coslov, WLB co-founder.
The Backstory
When Nina first connected with Dr. Marcie Richardson, she shared her belief that more attention needed to be paid to what many women experience before a skipped period or dramatic changes to cycle length (i.e. 7 or more days difference between consecutive cycles).
As a GYN who had been supporting women in the menopause transition for over 25 years, Nina so appreciated Dr. Richardson’s openness to the idea that there might be missing information. In fact, what Nina shared resonated with what she was hearing from her patients. Dr. Richardson reached out to Dr. Nancy Woods, a prolific midlife women’s health researcher. Dr. Woods was also open to this idea that there might be missing information about this earliest part of the path to menopause but suggested a scoping review — a look at what research had been done about the late reproductive stage (LRS)
The research collaboration that has followed has been fruitful and rewarding.
Our first published paper
This first paper from our collaboration Transitioning to the menopausal transition: a scoping review of research on the late reproductive stage in reproductive aging was published in the journal of the North American Menopause Society (NAMS). You can find the paper on the Menopause site here.
And for those that want a 5-minute video summary of the paper, click the image below:
Find the research that has followed here.
