Baby Boomers are Now Embracing Menopause

Rose is sitting through her 2pm lunch meeting with a colleague at a trendy new restaurant downtown. All of a sudden the air-conditioned room doesn’t seem that cool anymore, she can feel small droplets on her forehead, and bigger ones falling down her back. Fifty-year old Rose is experiencing the once dreaded hot flash, a common symptom in women going through menopause.
For generations, women kept their lips zipped about menopause. Now it makes the roster of every woman’s talk show in the country. They’re on television detailing their symptoms and they’re telling all in best-selling books.

Menopause once considered a taboo, has come out of the closet. Some credit baby boomers for bringing it to everyone’s attention. Menopause is now a hot topic because we have a generation of women accustomed to understanding their own bodies and accustomed to being informed.
The baby boomer generation has redefined every biological, social, and psychological transition they’ve encountered; from sexuality to careers to childrearing. Traditionally, menopause was associated with many negative expectations and perceptions. But, as groundblazers, it was expected that as baby boomers approached menopause, they would want to become empowered so they could play an active role in taking charge of this transition.

Menopause means only the final menstrual period. But according to Dr. Sadja Greenwood, author of “Menopause, Naturally,” the word in common usage designates “a transitional time from a few years before the last menses to a year after it.” Menstruation becomes irregular and ceases because hormone output from the ovaries is declining. It’s that drop in hormone levels that can bring on problems or noticeable signs that the body is undergoing change.

Health care providers say hot flashes, the sudden rise in skin temperature that can leave the recipient hot, sweaty and breathless - are often the symptoms that send women in search of help and information. Other frequent symptoms are mood changes, sudden inexplicable crying and irregular bleeding. It could be incontinence or vaginal dryness resulting in painful sexual intercourse that sends a woman to her OB-GYN. In some cases, the changes are almost imperceptible. A woman is considered through menopause only when she has had no periods or bleeding for 12 months.

Menopause is a subject that’s still regarded as a disorder or a deficiency. For years menopause was viewed in negative terms. It was a time when women dried up, lost their sexuality and attractiveness, for example. At worst it was treated as a mental illness. At best it was regarded as a rite of passage. Today, it’s taking on a new image, emerging as a phase of life that’s manageable with diet, exercise and, sometimes, medication.

Women need to see and understand this change in their bodies as an evolution. They also need to embrace the idea that it’s not all over, there’s a lot more living to do.

For Boomeryearbook.com