Talk:Menopause

Making significant changes?

Some people who edit the article probably do not look at this talk page, but for those who do, please, if you make sweeping changes to the article (or even just to the intro) it would be helpful to the rest of us if you leave a note on this talk page explaining what you did and why you did it. Or at least please indicate what you did and why in your edit summaries! Thanks. Invertzoo (talk) 00:52, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

More on the mother/grandmother hypothosis

The article says the grandmother/mother hypotheses wouldn't make sense from an evolutionary standpoint as the majority of existing hunter gatherer societies are patriarchal.

Matrilineality - the tracing of a line through the mother - versus patriarchy - power weighted towards men - are not one and the same. Indeed there are lots of indications - including in the wiki article about matrilineality - that patrilineality came along with the transition to agriculture and the accumulation of property, which was to be passed down to offspring. In substistance cultures pre-agriculture, there was not monogamy- which recent dna testing confirms - and matrilineality was common sense - the mother was known, the father wasn't - regardless of patricarchy and who held the most power. There was also little or no property to be passed from one generation to the next, just group survival - so the insistance on female virginity/monogamy/purity/sexual control is not something you'd see.

It was also common in pre-modern cultures for little travel from the place of birth to ever take place - so from that perspective a patriarchal power system does not preclude a maternal grandmother having contact with and supporting a grandchild.

The criticism of the mother hypothesis claims that if it were an advantage for a woman to not have children after the age of 50, the same would also have to be true of men(and discounts it because men can father children as old as 94, while the oldest woman was 59). Men do not go through gestation and labor - the process of which requires extra nutrients and causes even young women to lose a tooth during pregancy or suffer other symptoms due to the body prioritizing the health of the baby during pregnanacy. Fathering a child is a different process physically than a woman's pregnancy - it doesn't seem to have any bearing on whether is is adaptive to a woman's survival to not get pregnant over 50. If anything, the fact that a man remains fertile even when he has lost most of his physical strength and is near death indicates that from an evolutionary standpoint, the identity of the father was largely immaterial - the tribal group would raise the child, and the act of fathering a child is not a usually a physical danger for a father. Also, it would not present any evolutionary advantage to focus energy on supporting his existing children in middle and older age for a father, if he didn't know which children he had fathered...in that sense the lack of parallel between men and women makes sense - the mother does know for certain which are hers.

Mothering a child later in life statistically results in a much greater prevalence of preganancies dangerous to the mother - the number of Ceaesarians and other birth complications is higher in older mothers. Not to mention that by the maternal age of 45, one in eight children has a chromosonal defect.

The article mentions that having more children doesn't result in a lower age of menopause - as a means of discounting the stress hypothosis on female reproductive longevity. But it fails to mention that there was definitely a correlation with NOT having children in pre-modern culture and overall longevity. From records of Elizabethan England - a woman who did not have children could live into her sixties or seventies - similiar in age to a man - while those who had children died much younger and often from suffering complications in childbirth. It seems there is a distinct physical advantage to a woman not getting pregnant in middle age - just as there was also a physical advantage in men not going to war in middle age - both activities require extreme physical performance. Many early cultures also did not send men into battle after 40 years of age.

I did not edit the article because I have not been on wikipedia much and am not prepared to present in a professional way at this time. I would ask someone who has the time to please look into this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.169.254.2 (talk) 18:15, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Hello and thanks for your suggestions. However, Wikipedia has to rely on published sources for its information. If you can find a reliable published source that makes some or all of the same points you just made in your post, then you can put those criticisms into the article. Without a reliable source those objections would be editorializing, which we are not allowed to do. Invertzoo (talk) 15:15, 23 March 2014 (UTC)

The lede section

It looks to me as if the lede has too many inline citations now. Are all those points controversial enough to need a citation right there in the lead rather than later in the text? Invertzoo (talk) 19:53, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes everything in medicine is controversial. If there is not a reference someone will add a citation needed tag. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:22, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Also I feel it is essential that the lede does not restrict the definition of menopause to the stopping of the periods. The lede also states that "All women experience menopause" and yet what about those women who have no uterus, either because they were born without one, or had their uterus removed at some point when they were younger? Quite a lot of younger women have a hysterectomy and they do of course also have menopause. Invertzoo (talk) 19:58, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes there are two definitions. One is the stopping of periods. And the other is the stopping of hormones. I have added the second to the lead. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:32, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Great comments, perhaps this can be elaborated further in the article. Also, I can hide the citations in the lede, it makes it look better.

  Bfpage |leave a message  19:37, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

• Per "her menstrual cycles (including her menstrual periods) stop". These are closely related enough that IMO we can just state when her menstrual periods stop. This keeps thing simple. More complicated discussions can go in the body
• This "any episodes of menstrual flow" means period. We can use the common term. It keeps things simpler.
• We already state the same in paragraph 3 "and is a result of a decrease in the hormones produced by the ovaries" No need to repeat it in paragraph 1
• Not sure why "also known as climacteric," was removed
• I have added "in most women's life" to address the concern raised.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:39, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

It is of course true that any episode of menstrual flow does technically equal a period, but I have talked to plenty of women who did not think that spotting for days on end was the same thing as a period, because it was nothing like the typical periods they had when they were younger. Invertzoo (talk) 18:28, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Okay changed the second "period" to "no vaginal bleeding" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 12:18, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Invertzoo, the definition used really isn't based on my experience or anyone else's experience it is from a medical textbook. If we edit from our own experience or the the experience of another, we are not editing from a neutral point of view and we using original research! "Climacteric" seemed to be a term that was undefined and I sure did not know what it meant. The textbook I used for the definitions does not define spotting as menstrual flow. I would hesitate to add definitions based upon our own experiences in medical articles. Best Regards,

  Bfpage |leave a message  19:14, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

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A year without periods

In the intro it says that "Medical professionals often define menopause as having occurred when a woman has not had any vaginal bleeding for a year." Although this is true, younger women can go a year without any periods if they have a pregnancy followed by breast-feeding which in some women causes the periods to be suppressed. Should we clarify the statement? Invertzoo (talk) 23:04, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I guess we could change it to a "non pregnancy women". But it is really not needed. During delivery there is lots of bleeding PV. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:20, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Endocrine Society guideline

doi:10.1210/jc.2015-2236 managing the symptoms - benefits vs risks. JFW | T@lk 11:27, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Restructure

I find it somewhat odd that "perimenopause" and other stages are explained under "diagnosis".. they have been mentioned many times before. I think there should be a "Definition and stages" section before "Signs and symptoms"? Richiez (talk) 13:00, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

These are definition used for formal diagnosis. We could add a brief bit to the section on signs and symptoms maybe? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 14:10, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Seems to me that of those definitions are also valid generally outside of the context of diagnosis and the text has plenty of information which would belong into symptoms or other sections. I think having those definitions somewhere far on top would help tremendously to avoid scattering and duplicating information all around the place. Richiez (talk) 14:29, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

New Theories

I would like to include my own theories on menopause. I was a MLT, called CLT in other parts of the world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.129.255.217 (talk) 02:32, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

Nope, see WP:OR. Jytdog (talk) 03:03, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

If I publish a website with the information then is it considered no original research? All tease arch is original at some point in time anyways.