What Causes Early Menopause?

Early menopause is also known as premature menopause or perimenopause.

Normally, menopause starts between the ages of 45-55 years. But, early menopause can start in the 30s or in early 40s and it happens in women who have at least one ovary.

Usually, early menopause is due to premature ovarian failure, in which ovaries do not function in a normal way. Ovaries stop their functioning years before that they are supposed to.

If you have early menopause, you don’t get periods successively for twelve months before reaching 45 years of age.

Various factors can trigger early menopause. One reason for early menopause is your ovaries no longer have eggs to release. The second reason is your ovaries do not react to your body’s hormonal communication. Sometimes, early menopause may be due to lifestyle choices, such as:

• Poor nutrition


• Heavy smoking


• Heavy drinking


• Chronic stress to your body due to excessive athletic training


• Birth control pills


• Sometimes genetics


• High stress levels


• Obesity


• Cultural attitudes


• Poor quality sleep


• Synthetic hormone replacement therapy


• Exposure to environmental toxins
  

Also, there are some factors that are outside of a woman’s control, which can trigger early menopause. For instance, autoimmune diseases can affect menopause to occur early. Serious viral infections like mumps can greatly damage the eggs.

Sometimes, menopause can be associated with less primary follicles that are able to grow and ovulate. So, women with less primary follicles and damaged eggs are unable to develop an ovulatory egg thus they are prone to early menopause.

Women who had radiation therapy or chemotherapy have lost large number of their eggs. So, with fewer eggs, menopause can strike the woman’s life at an early age.

Women who born with fewer eggs can also experience early menopause.

Damage to ovaries or removal of ovaries can make women to experience early menopause. This is a most rapid form of menopause. For these women, hormone replacement therapy is suggested because their bodies have not had a chance to get used to hormonal changes.

Prior to the stoppage of menstrual cycle, you enter into perimenopause, which is called as transitional cycle. This phase can exist for two to six years.

Some studies showed that never having had a child may make you to experience early menopause.

Most of the times women tend to get menopause around the same age as their mothers and sisters, although the link between family history and age at menopause is still inconclusive.