Menopause: things to celebrate and things to demand

Do you wonder why menopause tends to be portrayed in a negative light? Why does everyone talk about bothersome symptoms, anxiety, struggles? 

I encourage you to start talking about positive things related to it, like liberation from periods and contraception! 

In this article I referred to issues surrounding menopause in the workplace, but let’s not forget women also face challenges earlier on – due to periods and pregnancy. There are many ways in which employers can demonstrate lack of support for female physiology. This needs to change imminently and should start with educating the employers. 

Today I want to get personal...

...and tell you how having a period at work as a doctor could ruin my workday. When I will eventually become menopausal, it will be such a relief not to bleed at work. So go ahead and celebrate your menopause as a liberation from periods! 

Last year I wrote this in my diary: 

“This is a tale of physiology getting in the way of work, or maybe work getting in the way of physiology. Today is another day when unfortunately, being a female on her period, interferes with the demands of the job. It’s the third day, bleeding is very heavy. All I would like is to stay in bed, change the tampons whenever I want to... but I can’t. I am consulting a patient face to face, strategically wearing black trousers of course. Nevertheless, half-way through the consultation I feel that warm gush of blood between my legs, knowing that the period is just running, simply because I was just too busy to change the tampon. I just couldn’t find five minutes to do it. Right now, I have a patient with an emergency and need to organise his hospital admission, so the tampon will have to wait.” 

But it was even worse when I trained in the hospital. I have vivid memories of working in Obstetrics & Gynaecology and bleeding, bleeding through the scrubs, bleeding profusely, and knowing I had this big stain on the trousers that probably everyone could see, including all the male colleagues. This caused me immense physical and psychological discomfort. There were no sanitary products provided in any of the bathrooms, and sometimes I was rushing so much in the morning, that I would just forget to bring my own supplies.   

Assisting at surgeries would be the worst, as these would sometimes last for several hours. I would be scrubbed up and operating, and suddenly the familiar stream of warm blood would find its way through the tampon, accompanied by abdominal cramps. I couldn’t leave halfway through the surgery, so just had to put up with it.  This was profoundly distressing, and significantly embarrassing; just horrible, really.  With regular periods I could at least predict when they would come, but just imagine being in the perimenopause and getting highly irregular periods which could start anytime, anywhere.  

This is why we should demand... 

...that employers ensure female toilets in the workplace are equipped with sanitary products. There should be support for working women at every stage of their lives, so that periods, pregnancies and menopause do not interfere with their careers, and are instead celebrated. 

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