Dr Natalie Crawford

Talk about having a competitive woman.

She would probably want to work for you, you know, and is offering those things to make her mothering easier while she's trying to work.

I think you would have the most competitive workforce.

You have a licensed child care provider available.

I mean, you can't have one without the other, right?

So perimenopause is basically in this fertility decline area.

Okay, so fertility is not an issue.

You don't want to ever have a baby.

You're still going to go through perimenopause.

And so...

Perimenopause is defined medically in the worst way as the transition from normal menstrual cycles to no menstrual cycle ever again, okay?

So when we look at definitions, menopause is defined as one year after the final menstrual period.

What it really means is ovarian failure.

And that offends people, but that's actually medically what it is.

You have run out of eggs, and you've run out of the ability of the ovary to produce hormones.

And so perimenopause begins

Medically, straw staging is the very complicated methodology to define the stages of perimenopause.

And a lot of it is based on menstrual cycle irregularity.

But hormonally, what's happening starts well before our periods become irregular.

So as those egg levels decline and the ability to respond to the stimulus coming from the brain, remember ovulation starts in the brain,