Fertility and Menopause

Fertility and the menopause are inextricably linked and it is a well known fact that fertility is affected by the menopause. Now, a new test may soon be available to predict the age of menopause. The onset of menopause varies in different women and being able to predict the age of menopause can be a very useful tool, especially to women who plan to have a family later in life.

The test measures a hormone called anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) which is found in the ovaries and which controls the follicles from which the egg developes. It could allow women as young as 20 to pinpoint to within a few months, when they would cease to be fertile.

The test cannot predict when a woman will actually lose her fertility. This usually happens about a decade before menopause, but, as many a pregnant menopausal woman will tell you, this is not always the case!! Some woman can even be fertile in the perimenopause or menopause so beware if you don't want to get pregnant.

For those women who have deferred their family and do want to get pregnant, then this test could allow them to plan their family before their fertility starts to decline.

The way this test helps is that if doctors know when a woman will go into menopause, they can calculate roughly when they will run out of eggs. Scientists say the test could be especially helpful in identifying women who might go into menopause early. 

The test was developed by Dr Tehrani, a senior researcher at the World Health Organisation backed Endocrine Research Centre in Tehran.
In a study carried out at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran by Dr Tehrani, 266 women aged twenty to forty nine, were monitored through blood samples and physical examinations at three-yearly intervals over a 12-year period. A mathematical model for estimating the age at menopause from AMH levels in the blood was then used to predict the age of the onset of menopause. This was found to be accurate to within a third of a year, which is pretty good.

Of course, fertility is not just dependent on eggs - there are other factors such as the partner's sperm and other medical complications too so this should just be considered as one of the factors 

Scientists know that the levels of hormones decline with age and vary between different women and also that the changing levels were linked to the menopause, but did not have sufficient data to use this knowledge in order to predict the decline of fertility before the menopause.
Hopefully this menopause test will now help them to do so.