Postmenopause is the stage of a woman’s life after she has completed menopause. She then no longer gets menstrual periods and has lost her fertility, but is not yet in the last stage of life, the senium.
What is postmenopause?
Postmenopause is the stage of a woman’s life after she has completed menopause. She then stops getting periods and has lost her fertility. The life cycle of a human differs in many ways from that of most other mammals. Aging female mammals are postmenopausal for a very short period of their lives, if at all. In humans, by contrast, the postmenopausal period takes decades. Postmenopause begins when menopause is over. The woman has had her last menstrual period, and there is no more menstrual bleeding, intermenstrual bleeding or spotting. Her ovaries are inactive and no further ovulation will occur. As a result, hormone production also changes significantly in postmenopause, and estrogen levels are constantly very low from now on. This also poses health risks such as the possible onset of osteoporosis, which can develop during postmenopause. Other physical changes due to postmenopause include thinning hair on the head, aging of the skin, increasing vaginal dryness and, in some cases, declining sexual interest. Postmenopausal women are no longer fertile – but are believed to have a significant positive effect on the survival of their own children’s offspring from now on as grandmothers. Such grandmothering behavior as in humans is virtually unknown in the animal kingdom, which is why it is suspected that humans go through such a long postmenopause for this very purpose. Typically, menopause begins in the 40s and postmenopause sets in after the last menstrual period (menopause) has occurred. Thus, an accurate determination of the onset of postmenopause is possible only in retrospect, because after a menstrual period has occurred, it cannot be accurately predicted whether it was really the last bleeding.
Function and task
For a woman, entering postmenopause means a progression of her individual aging. After the age of 40, pregnancy is riskier for the woman. From an evolutionary biological point of view, the decline in fertility could also be due to the fact that women, without the technical progress they have undergone in recent centuries, might have died in their 40s before the child would have been able to take care of itself. Today, thanks to modern medicine, there are still many pregnancies after the age of 40. Postmenopause seems to be quite beneficial to humans, because women are still fit enough at the time of their postmenopause to actively help raise children. The presence of a caring and experienced grandmother may have been one of many evolutionary advantages for humans.
Diseases and ailments
Postmenopause, like menopause itself, is accompanied by physical changes. However, most of these changes first appeared during menopause, and now it becomes apparent whether or not they are permanent. The woman learns in postmenopause, her natural physical changes. Some are minor, for example, the structure of the hair changes and it becomes darker especially with light hair colors, because a light hair color is much more closely related to estrogen levels. Skin aging becomes more apparent, the skin becomes more wrinkled and dry. Many women gain some weight during postmenopause. More significant are changes with pathological value. The now constantly reduced hormone levels can still lead to cardiac arrhythmias, increased brittleness of the bones with risk of osteoporosis, hot flushes and similar phenomena in the postmenopause. Hormone replacement therapy started during menopause may need to be continued during postmenopause. However, such therapies are known to increase the risk of developing various cancers such as breast cancer. Premature onset of postmenopause is also medically relevant. Systemic diseases that affect the function of the ovaries may also represent premature postmenopause, which is the term used when a woman begins to show signs of menopause before the age of 40.
