Can Pregnancy after Menopause Occur?

There is a lot of confusion about whether or not pregnancy after menopause is possible. That confusion is partly based on a lack of understanding about menopause itself. You see, you have only actually gone through menopause if you have not had a period for an entire year. Anything less than twelve full months is not really menopause. So no, you cannot get pregnant after you have gone through menopause. It is scientifically impossible.

Why is that? Namely because, by that point, your body is not producing eggs any longer. You do not menstruate anymore. Because of that, you do not ovulate anymore either. If you are not ovulating, you cannot get pregnant. It is as simple as that. You see, when your body stops producing estrogen, then other processes stop as well. For instance, estrogen triggers the release of certain other hormones which are essential to menstruation. Without those hormones, ovulation tapers off and eventually stops altogether. Generally, most women have their very last periods sometime in their fifties or sixties. The exact range is probably somewhere between the late fifties, early sixties for most women. Meaning, that is at the point where a lot of women become entirely infertile.

However, during pre menopause or perimenopause – as well as premature or early menopause – you absolutely can get pregnant. Pre menopause is the stage leading up to menopause. Every woman experiences it. Some women also experience early menopause, but not all of them. The symptoms and signs of both or the same. The most important aspect is that this is the point where your estrogen levels start decreasing. As your body produces less estrogen, less of those other, essential hormones are produced as well. As a result, your periods become more erratic. In addition, you ovulate more irregularly. This means that there is no real way of pinpointing your fertile time every month. As you begin to skip periods from month to month, there is no guaranteeing that you will even be fertile.

That is why you often hear it said that it can be difficult for "older" women to get pregnant. In this case, you do not even have to be particularly old. Women are going through menopause at younger and younger ages – hence the qualification of early menopause. It applies to women who are younger than 45 when they start the process of pre menopause.

This becomes a problem when you consider the fact that, on the average, women are waiting longer to start families these days. In a funny way, the state of the economy has a profound affect on that. It is not exactly ideal. Unless you are in the very small percentile of very rich people, pretty much every able bodied adult has to work these days, just to get by adequately. Two income homes are far more common than single income families. As such, a lot of women are choosing to wait until they are financially secure before having children. Such women need to understand why it may be difficult for them to get pregnant.