Certain reproductive factors tied to premature menopause in Asians

Women with histories of infertility, recurrent miscarriages, and stillbirths are more likely to experience premature or early menopause, with stronger associations observed for Asian women, as reported in a study.

For the study, individual participant data from nine observational studies were pooled. The analysis included 303,594 naturally postmenopausal women with data on at least one of the reproductive factors (ie, infertility, miscarriage, and stillbirth) and age at menopause. Associations were estimated by controlling for confounding factors such as race, education level, age at menarche, body mass index, and smoking status.

The participants’ median age at natural menopause was 50.0 years (interquartile range, 47.0–52.0), with menopause occurring prematurely for 2.1 percent of the participants and early for 8.4 percent.

Multinominal logistic regression model showed that participants with infertility had a higher risk of premature (relative risk [RR], 2.72, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.77–4.17) and early menopause (RR, 1.42, 95 percent CI, 1.15–1.74).

The same was true for participants with recurrent miscarriages (premature: RR, 1.31, 95 percent CI, 1.08, 1.59; early: RR, 1.37, 95 percent CI, 1.14–1.65) and those with recurrent stillbirths (premature: RR, 1.54, 95 percent CI, 1.52–1.56; early: RR, 1.39, 95 percent CI, 1.35–1.43).

Of note, Asian women with infertility, recurrent miscarriages (≥3), or recurrent stillbirths (≥2) were at greater risk of premature and early menopause compared with non-Asian women with the same reproductive history.