{"id":11033,"date":"2023-02-13T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-13T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=11033"},"modified":"2023-02-13T08:59:46","modified_gmt":"2023-02-13T13:59:46","slug":"understanding-menopause-and-advocating-for-effective-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2023\/02\/13\/understanding-menopause-and-advocating-for-effective-care\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding Menopause and Advocating for Effective Care"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

Anna Barbieri \u201995 was a busy obstetrician\nin her early 40s, \u201cdelivering babies night\nafter night,\u201d she says, when she started to\nexperience emotional changes. \u201cI thought\nthat it was just the stress of everything\ngetting to me,\u201d Barbieri says.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Illustration by Delphine Lee <\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In fact, it was perimenopause. This\nstage of transition into menopause typically\nlasts five years but can be as long as a\ndecade, and can bring a range of symptoms\nincluding sleep problems, sexual changes,\nirregular periods, and brain fog, as well as\nthe hot flashes and night sweats people are\nmost familiar with.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women going through this phase may\nnot recognize it, and their doctors may not\neither. \u201cI myself did not realize what it was\nfor a good six to 12 months,\u201d Barbieri says.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The experience inspired her to shift the focus of her practice. In her office on Manhattan\u2019s Upper East Side, she now focuses on patients in midlife who are navigating menopause and other hormonal transitions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barbieri is board certified in obstetrics\nand gynecology as well as integrative\nmedicine, the latter of which she describes\nas \u201cthings that should be part of medicine\nand somehow are not paid much attention\nto.\u201d For example, along with conversations\nabout hormone therapy and medications\nthat can help symptoms, she talks to her\npatients about nutrition, stress reduction,\nand getting better sleep.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barbieri has always been fascinated by the intersection between physical and emotional health. \u201cTo me they\u2019re inextricably linked,\u201d she says. \u201cI think menopause is a perfect example of how these two go together.\u201d Hormones, which go haywire in the lead-up to menopause, affect a person\u2019s mental and emotional health, which in turn affect how a person perceives their physical experience, Barbieri says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To avoid being caught by surprise like she was, Barbieri recommends that younger women educate themselves on what perimenopause looks like. And it\u2019s a good idea for women to ask their mothers or other older female relatives about their own experience, she says, because menopause has a genetic component. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also suggests trying to let go of the\nfear of this transition.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t need to feel compelled to fight\nagainst it,\u201d Barbieri says. \u201cGetting old and\naging has all these negative connotations.\nThe reality is menopause happens to all of\nus eventually, and that aging is a fact of life.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though menopause happens to\neveryone who menstruates and lives long\nenough, people experience it differently,\nBarbieri says, and accepting menopause\ndoesn\u2019t have to mean suffering through it.\nShe wants patients to be able to advocate\nfor themselves in medical settings, so they\ncan get effective care and not have their\nexperiences dismissed.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That desire motivated her to become\nthe founding physician of a digital health\nstart-up called Elektra. It\u2019s a platform that\nprovides education and community to\nwomen going through menopause. Elektra\u2019s\nwebsite says, \u201cWe\u2019re creating a movement\nto reimagine menopause as the beginning\nof a new chapter, one that is powerful and\ntransformative.\u201d\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe go through this process of transition and almost becoming the next version of ourselves,\u201d Barbieri says. Just as she shifted her own professional focus in midlife and became a doctor who focuses on menopause, Barbieri has seen her own patients experience transformations in their professional lives, interests, and sense of purpose alongside their biological transformations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis time is a perfect opportunity for\nus to really learn how our bodies work,\nunderstand what\u2019s happening, and use\nthat knowledge to figure out how we can\noptimize our health for now, ourselves, and\nfor the future.\u201d\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anna Barbieri \u201995 helps patients in midlife who are navigating menopause and other hormonal transitions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1272,"featured_media":11230,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[471,1286,1283,1287,1285],"coauthors":[595],"class_list":["post-11033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni-spotlights","category-alumni-updates","tag-aging","tag-gynecology","tag-menopause","tag-obstetrics","tag-perimenopause"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-2RX","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2023\/01\/Colgate-_Menopause-final2-5.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1272"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11033"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11632,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11033\/revisions\/11632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11033"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}