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Women & Menopause
Pregnancy & your Periods
Can you still get pregnant when you are going through menopause?
When you have finally reached the menopause, you can no longer get pregnant. But if you do not want to have a baby, be careful not to become pregnant by mistake. Even if your periods are not regular when you are getting older, you can still become pregnant. Until you are absolutely sure that you haven’t had a single period for at least 12 months, you should still use contraception during sex if you do not want to get pregnant.
Is there any such thing as a chimimba muteku (menopausal belly)?
Changes in our hormones change the shape of our bodies and it becomes easier to put on weight. If we get fat this will increase the size of our belly. If you develop a menopausal belly, this is caused by fat around the belly.
Periods are not needed to wash away dirt or semen. When you have had sex, when you stand up the semen will run out of your vagina. This is the same before and after menopause. If you have sex after the menopause, dirt and/or semen does not build up inside the body because they come out of your vagina, often we don’t notice them coming out.
What happens to the blood from your period when you go through menopause?
When you are a young woman, each month hormones in your body make your womb ready in case you get pregnant. They do this by building up the womb lining. If you don’t get pregnant, the womb lining bleeds away and the blood comes out through your vagina. After each period the womb gets ready again, just in case you might get pregnant, and this goes on every month until you reach menopause.
When you can no longer get pregnant (because your ovaries stop releasing an egg each month), the womb doesn’t need to prepare for pregnancy, and no lining is built and you don’t bleed anymore. It is important to remember that if you are in menopause and have not bled at all for 12 months (1 year), if you start to bleed again, even if it is a small amount of blood, then you must see your clinic sister and/or doctor as this is not normal and can be a sign of disease in the womb.
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