There’s an idea that menopause is a one-size-fits-all experience. Hot flushes, mood swings and poor sleep quality are all to be expected once you hit midlife and lose your periods, right? Well, that might not be the case. Not only can individual experiences of menopause differ hugely, depending on your medical history, genetics and lifestyle, researchers also think that the country you live in could play a role in menopause symptoms, duration and overall experience.
This is partly down to access to treatments and how advanced individual countries’ healthcare systems are, as well as diet and lifestyle in different cultures. But some experts believe that the main reason the differences are so stark between women’s experiences of menopause from country-to-country is social stigma.
“The stigma around ageing and menopause in the US is hard to overstate,” says Dr Nanette Santoro, who is Chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at The University of Colorado School of Medicine and a researcher on the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), which examines midlife women’s health epidemiologically. “In other countries and cultures, I think there is more acceptance of aging and death, as well as more respect for elders,” she says.
