Menopause is the permanent cessation of menstruation or "menses". While originally used to described this reproductive change in human females, the usage of the term "menopause", literally meaning "end of monthly cycles" from the Greek words pausis (cessation) and men (month), has expanded to indicate the permanent discontinuation of female fertility in other species, such as some matrilineal whales, despite the fact that such animals experience no menstrual cycles.
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Menopause is the permanent cessation of menstruation or "menses". While originally used to described this reproductive change in human females, the usage of the term "menopause", literally meaning "end of monthly cycles" from the Greek words pausis (cessation) and men (month), has expanded to indicate the permanent discontinuation of female fertility in other species, such as some matrilineal whales, despite the fact that such animals experience no menstrual cycles.
Menopause in humans
In adult human females who still have a uterus, and who are not pregnant or lactating, postmenopause is identified by a permanent (at least one year's) absence of monthly periods or menstruation. In women without a uterus, menopause or postmenopause is identified by a very high FSH level.
In human females, menopause usually happens more or less in midlife, signaling the end of the fertile phase of a woman's life. Menopause is perhaps most easily understood as the opposite process to menarche, the start of the monthly periods. However, menopause in women cannot satisfactorily be defined simply as the permanent "stopping of the monthly periods", because in reality what is happening to the uterus is quite secondary to the process; it is what is happening to the ovaries that is the crucial factor.
For medical reasons, the uterus must sometimes be surgically removed (hysterectomy) in a younger woman; her periods will cease permanently, and the woman will technically be infertile, but as long as at least one of her ovaries is still functioning, the woman will not have reached menopause; even without the uterus, ovulation and the release of the sequence of reproductive hormones will continue to cycle on until menopause is reached. But in circumstances when a woman's ovaries are removed (oophorectomy), even if the uterus were to be left intact, the woman will immediately be in "surgical menopause".
Thus menopause is based on the natural or surgical cessation of hormone production by the ovaries, which are a part of the body's endocrine system of hormone production, in this case the hormones which make reproduction possible and may influence sexual behavior. The resultant decreased levels of circulating estrogen impacts the entire cascade of a woman's reproductive functioning, from brain to skin.
The menopause transition, and post-menopause itself, is a natural life change, not a disease state or a disorder. The transition itself can be challenging for a number of women, but for others it is not difficult.
Age of onset
The typical age range for the occurrence of menopause is between the ages of 45 and 55. The average age of menopause varies according to geographic location. In the Western world, the average age of menopause is 51 years. In some developing countries, such as India and the Philippines, the median age of natural menopause is considerably earlier, at 44 years.
