A study published last week in Human Reproduction shows that there is a genetic clue to the age at which a woman has her menopause. This seems to have sparked a great deal of interest in the press, who have since been advising us (especially the 'career women') 'how to beat the fertility clock', that we should 'consult parents' about our 'deadline for childbearing' and our 'ticking biological clocks'.
But, despite this attention, is this news really all that newsworthy? The warnings seem to be that trying to have children later in life (which apparently means in the thirties or early forties) might be harder, as fertility declines with age. This is especially the case if your immediate female relatives have a history of early menopause (the average age is about 51). We are now told that if our mothers, sisters and grandmothers have had theirs at, say, 40-years old, then we can probably safely assume that we might be in for an early menopause too. In addition to this, women become infertile before the menopause, and sub-fertile even before this time. But didn't we know this already? The concept of the 'biological clock' is one that is well-known.
What this study has done is confirm that in about 85 per cent of cases there is an identifiable genetic link between the times at which related women have their menopause. This is good news for those that wish to know, and it's even hoped that a genetic test will be devised in order to predict the age more accurately. This will be especially good for the 15 per cent of women who do not seem to have this genetic connection. But it seems that the rest of it is largely common sense. What needs to be stressed is not the fact that the menopause can now be predicted - but that our mother's menopausal age is not always determinative of ours, and nor is the menopause the point up until which we can bear children. Most women know that their fertility will decline with age, and that this decline will be greater past about 35-years old. They might also assume that if there is a family history of early menopause, that it might also happen to them. So, the hype isn't necessary - women will continue to balance their choices of when to have children against these factors, as they do now.
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