This “menopausal transition” brings unpredictable ovulation cycles as estrogen and progesterone hormone levels go up and down. During these years of yo-yoing hormone levels, your ovaries continue to release eggs for fertilization. Translation: You can still become pregnant.
As a woman ages, the quality and quantity of her eggs continually decline. A woman in her 50s could potentially still get pregnant, but the only way that could happen would be through a donor egg and in vitro fertilization, and even then the chances of conceiving are very slim.
No, women in menopause cannot get pregnant. After menopause, you do not produce eggs, and you can't get pregnant in a natural way. However, you might still get pregnant with the help of fresh or frozen donor eggs, or your previously frozen eggs.
Even if you don't have periods, you could still get pregnant. You may not know what caused your periods to stop. Possible causes include pregnancy, hormonal changes, and losing or gaining a lot of weight quickly. Some medicines and stress could also cause it.
Menopause Facts
Women do ovulate after menopause, but much less frequently than before. Fertility is, after all, dependent upon other factors besides ovulation; particularly the availability of a healthy, fertile partner and an active sex life.
Women can become pregnant after menopause with a donor egg or embryo, but these women also report increased complications during the process. If you are a surrogate mother in menopause, you are at more risk for: Gestational diabetes.
Although there are no reported cases of ovulation in a postmenopausal woman, we postulate that it is unlikely that it is rare; rather, the observation of it is rare.
Yes. Although it's uncommon, it's possible for a woman who hasn't yet had her period to become pregnant. That's because young women ovulate — release eggs from their ovaries — before they have their first period.
Menopause is considered to have occurred after a woman has gone a full 12 months without a period. Menopause marks the end of menstruation and a women's fertility. American women reach menopause at an average age of 51 years, although it can occur as early as age 40 to as late as the early 60s.
While it's not impossible to become pregnant naturally at 50, it is very rare. Women are born with all of the eggs they will ever have. As you get older, you have fewer eggs, and they are more likely to have abnormalities. Most women who get pregnant after 50 use donor eggs.
Ovulation Without a Period
Again, since your period results from ovulation, it is uncommon to ovulate without having a period, but not impossible. Factors such as uterine scarring or becoming pregnant can cause your period not to occur.
Although pregnancy after menopause is very rare, it can lead to vaginal bleeding like pregnancy in reproductive years. Thus, when women refer to clinics or hospitals with complaints of postmenopausal bleeding, the possibility of pregnancy should be included in the differential diagnosis by physicians or midwives.
Throughout the menopausal transition, some subtle — and some not-so-subtle — changes in your body may take place. You might experience: Irregular periods. As ovulation becomes more unpredictable, the length of time between periods may be longer or shorter, your flow may be light to heavy, and you may skip some periods.
A woman's peak reproductive years are between the late teens and late 20s. By age 30, fertility (the ability to get pregnant) starts to decline. This decline happens faster once you reach your mid-30s. By 45, fertility has declined so much that getting pregnant naturally is unlikely.
You reach menopause when you have not had a period for 12 months.
Postmenopause is the time after menopause, when a woman hasn't experienced a period for over a year. Postmenopause, you will no longer have periods but some women do continue to experience symptoms of menopause.
A woman is said to be postmenopausal when she has not had a period for 12 months. Perimenopause and menopause are a natural part of a woman's life course and usually occur between the ages 45 and 55 years of age, as a woman's oestrogen levels drop (although it can start earlier).
Usually if periods never start, girls do not go through puberty, and thus secondary sexual characteristics, such as breasts and pubic hair, do not develop normally. If women have been having menstrual periods, which then stop, they may have secondary amenorrhea. Secondary amenorrhea is much more common than primary.
After birth, your periods will return at your body's own pace. It's possible for your periods to return as soon as 4 to 6 weeks after childbirth. If you bottle feed or partially breastfeed your baby, you'll tend to start having periods sooner than if you exclusively breastfeed.
Just remember that although pregnancy becomes less likely as you get older, an unplanned pregnancy is still possible until you've officially reached menopause. You will need to use birth control throughout perimenopause if you do not want to become pregnant.
Yes, you still need to use condoms after menopause if you are not in a monogamous relationship. In a monogamous relationship, you and your partner have sex only with each other and no one else.
A menstrual cycle that's too long (35 days or more), too short (less than 21 days), irregular or absent can mean that you're not ovulating. There might be no other signs or symptoms.
Stopping contraception
All women can stop using contraception at the age of 55 as getting pregnant naturally after this is very rare. For safety reasons, women are advised to stop the combined pill at 50 and change to a progestogen-only pill or other method of contraception.