Premature Menopause:
When “The Change” Happens Earlier than Expected

For women in their twenties and thirties, menopause is something in the distant future. During most of a woman’s childbearing years, she’s not worried about night sweats and menopause hot flashes. Those are symptoms for their mothers to tell them about. But for some women, menopause comes too early, even as early as the teenage years. Premature menopause remains a mystery in many cases, a mystery that comes as a shock for the women who are affected by it.

Premature menopause is an overall term used to describe the total end of a woman’s menstrual periods for 12 months before the age of 40. Premature menopause is also called premature ovarian failure, or POF. In addition to ovarian failure, premature menopause can also be caused by a hysterectomy (removal of the uterus and/or ovaries) or by cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation.

Premature menopause from POF affects about 250,000 women in the United States. The symptoms of premature menopause are similar to normal signs of menopause: absence of periods, hot flashes, night sweats, mood changes, vaginal dryness, and infertility. There are two major differences between premature menopause and menopause: (1) a woman whose body has completed the process of premature menopause may still have irregular periods, and (2) about 5 to 10 percent of women who experiences premature menopause become pregnant without treatment. By contrast, a woman who has gone through a “normal” menopause (in her 40s or later) will not have any periods at all and cannot become pregnant without medical intervention. Women in premature menopause have similar low estrogen levels to post-menopausal women, and this explains the similarity in symptoms.

The medical community has not discovered yet why premature menopause, or POF, occurs in otherwise healthy young women, but research is ongoing for this perplexing and often disheartening condition. The treatment of premature menopause may be different than the standard treatment of menopause because women who go through premature menopause often have the desire to become pregnant.