How employer and patient awareness of menopause is changing the workplace

TORONTO — Leisha Porter was sleeping an hour or two every night and was having trouble getting work done.

“I felt like I just forgot everything,” said the 49-year-old from Waterloo, Ont.

Porter was 44 at the time and had been sweating all night, so she asked her doctor if she was going through menopause.

The doctor told her it was “very unlikely.”

A prescription for an antidepressant didn’t help, and Googling symptoms scared her.

“When you were a high performer at work and now you’re struggling to put your thoughts together (and) can’t remember what happened to your team the week before… I started thinking… you know, Alzheimer’s,” the director said group benefits services of Sun Life Insurance and Investment Company.

In her third year of symptoms, she saw a doctor, who finally did a blood test and confirmed that she was menopausal.

At the same time, her employer Sun Life began holding information sessions about perimenopause and menopause symptoms through a partnership with the Menopause Foundation of Canada.

“That was a turning point for me,” she said. The company recommended Porter when The Canadian Press asked to interview him for this story.

Canadians may have noticed that menopause is increasingly becoming a topic of conversation outside of medical circles, becoming increasingly prominent in entertainment and popular culture. Last month, women gathered at the National Menopause Expo at the Toronto Convention Centre. In February, CBC will premiere a new series called “Small Achievable Goals,” in which “The Baroness Von Sketch Show” alumnae navigates the workplace while coping with menopause. And PBS has a streaming documentary called “The M Factor,” touted as “breaking the silence on menopause.”

Growing awareness around health problem It’s long overdue, says Dr. Laurie Brotto, a professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of British Columbia and the principal investigator of a recent study called HER-BC.

The study involved more than 1,500 British Columbia women aged 39 to 60 who completed a comprehensive online survey. The researchers also conducted in-depth interviews with a sample of 20 women who lived in different parts of British Columbia and had varying socioeconomic status and race.

The survey listed 30 different menopause symptoms. Nearly 92 percent of survey participants said they had at least one moderate to severe symptom.

A third of participants said menopausal symptoms had affected their work.

Brotto said 17 women in the British Columbia study “genuinely believed” they were fired from their jobs because of menopausal symptoms.

While “the typical stereotype of a menopausal woman is that she’s standing, sweating, and holding a fan,” there are many symptoms beyond hot flashes and night sweats that women often don’t recognize as menopause, Brotto says.

“Other symptoms like bladder problems, urinary incontinence, trouble sleeping, trouble finding words, irritability, frozen shoulder, depressed mood, anxiety, vaginal dryness – all of these things are actually very, very common,” she said. she.

There are treatment options, such as hormone therapy, that women can talk to their doctor about, Brotto said.

Dr. Wendy Wolfman, director of the menopause clinic at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, said the CD study results are consistent with national research by the advocacy group Menopause Foundation of Canada.

This study, published in 2023, found that two-thirds of women said they would not feel comfortable talking to their manager or HR professional about menopause symptoms.

But the whole conversation about menopause is finally changing, and some workplaces are becoming more “respectful” of women with menopausal symptoms, says Wolfman, former president of the Canadian Menopause Society.

This is important because symptoms can greatly impact women’s performance at work, she said.

“I’ve had women… who would sweat at night, and they’d have to get up and change their sheets because they were sopping wet. And this happened several times during the night,” Wolfman said.

“In the morning, when they get up, they take a shower, get out of the shower, and then they get a hot flash and they get wet again, and then they have to get in the shower again. they are late for work,” she said.

“If you don’t sleep well, you may experience brain fog, so you don’t feel clear-headed in the morning and don’t feel like you can really function,” Wolfman added.

Perimenopause and menopause affect women during their prime working years, between ages 40 and 60, said Jennifer Gillivan, president and CEO of the IWK Foundation in Halifax, which raises money for women’s and children’s health.

“I really think companies are waking up and saying, ‘Oh, we need to do something about this because they have so many women in the workforce, and that’s a good thing,'” said Gillivan, who is also a member of the Women’s Health Collective Canada. .

Women are tired of suffering from health problems that are minimized or ignored, she said.

“I think overall equality around women’s health — and especially around menopause — is akin to the suffragette movement,” Gillivan said.

Sun Life’s efforts to create an environment where employees feel comfortable talking about menopause have had a huge impact on its health, Porter says.

She says her male manager encourages open conversation.

“(I can tell him) that some days I won’t be working 100 percent, and if I could just get some accommodation so I could work from home that day if I needed it,” she said.

Women need the flexibility to go to doctor’s appointments or other medical treatments that provide relief, such as massage, she said.

If she loses her train of thought at work, Porter feels comfortable saying, “Menopause moment, just give me a second.”

If employers and employees are not educated about menopause, it can cause problems in the workplace, she said.

“(The employer) might say, ‘Well, they’re missing something.’ It’s like they make mistakes,” Porter said.

According to her, if an employee does not know what is happening to him, he will not be able to explain himself and try to solve the problem using any strategic tools.

One of the tools Porter uses to combat brain fog is documenting all of her one-on-one meetings to remind her of important moments later.

As a leader, she conveys a culture of openness to her team.

“I’m starting these truthful conversations about me to create a space where people can say, ‘I’m the person you can talk to (about) menopause or mental health or whatever it is you’re working with,’” she said .

“I just really appreciate it and try to have the same philosophy.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 25, 2024.

The Canadian Press’s health coverage is supported through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.

Nicole Ireland, The Canadian Press