How menopause awareness among employers, patients is changing the workplace

This is a file photo of a woman working. (Photo by Andrew Neel/Pexels)

TORONTO — Leisha Porter was getting an hour or two of sleep each night and having trouble functioning at work

"I was just forgetting everything, it felt like," said the 49-year-old from Waterloo, Ont.

Porter was 44 years old at the time and sweating all night, so she asked her doctor if she might be in menopause.

The doctor told her it was "very unlikely."

A prescription for an antidepressant didn't help, while Googling her symptoms scared her.

"When you have been kind of a high-performing person at work and now you're struggling to put your thoughts together (and) you can't remember what happened with your team from the week before...I started thinking...you know, Alzheimer's," said the service director of group benefits at Sun Life, an insurance and investment company.

Going into her third year of symptoms, she saw a doctor who finally did blood work and confirmed she was in menopause.

At the same time her employer Sun Life began drop-in information sessions about perimenopause and menopause symptoms as part of a partnership with Menopause Foundation of Canada.

"That was the turning point for me," she said. The company recommended Porter when The Canadian Press requested an interview for this story.

Canadians might have noticed menopause is increasingly a topic of conversation outside of health circles, gaining profile in entertainment and popular culture. Last month, women flocked to the National Menopause Show at a convention centre in Toronto. CBC is premiering a new series in February called "Small Achievable Goals," which features "Baroness von Sketch Show" alumni navigating the workplace while dealing with menopause. And PBS has a streaming documentary called "The M Factor," billed as "shredding the silence on menopause."

The growing awareness around the health issueis far overdue, said Dr. Lori Brotto, a professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of British Columbia and principal investigator on a recent study called HER-BC.

The study included more than 1,500 B.C. women between 39 and 60 years of age who completed a comprehensive online survey. The researchers also did in-depth interviews with a sample of 20 women who lived in different parts of B.C. and had varying socio-economic statuses and races.

The survey listed 30 different menopause symptoms. Almost 92 per cent of the survey participants said they had at least one "moderate to severe" symptom.

One-third of the participants said menopause symptoms affected their jobs.

Brotto said 17 women in the B.C. study "truly believed" that they were fired from their jobs because of menopause symptoms.

Although the "typical stereotype of the menopausal woman is her 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 said.

"Other symptoms like bladder problems, urinary incontinence, sleep problems, word-finding problems, irritability, frozen shoulder, depressed mood, anxiety, dry vagina -- all of these things are actually very, very common," she said.

There are treatment options such as hormone therapy that women can speak with their health-care provider about, Brotto noted.

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

That research, published in 2023, found two-thirds of women said they would not be comfortable talking to their supervisor or human resources professional about their menopause symptoms.

But the whole conversation about menopause is finally changing, and some workplaces are becoming more "respectful" of women who have menopausal symptoms, said Wolfman, who is the past-president of the Canadian Menopause Society.

That's key, because the symptoms can have a big effect on women's performance at work, she said.

"I've had women ... having sweats during the night so that they have to get up change their bed clothes because they're soaking wet. And that would occur several times a night," Wolfman said.

"In the morning, when they get up, they have a shower, they get out of the shower, and then they have a hot flash, and they get wet again, and then they have to go back in the shower. So that makes them late for work," she said.

"If you don't sleep well, you may have 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 hit women during their prime working years of age 40 to past age 60, said Jennifer Gillivan, president and CEO of the IWK Foundation in Halifax, which raises money for women's and children's health.

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

Women are tired of suffering from health issues that have been minimized or ignored, she said.

"I think the overall equality for women's health -- and specifically for menopause --is akin to a suffragette movement," Gillivan said.

Sun Life's efforts to create an environment where employees feel comfortable talking about menopause has made a huge difference in her health, said Porter.

Her male supervisor encourages open conversation, she said.

"(I'm able to tell him) some days I'm not going to be 100 per cent and if I could just get a little bit of an accommodation to work from home that day if I needed to," she said.

Women need the flexibility to go to doctor's appointments or other health-care sessions that provide relief, such as massage therapy, she said.

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

If an employer and employee aren't educated about menopause, it could cause problems in the workplace, she said.

"(The employer) could say 'well they're missing things.' Like they're making mistakes," Porter said.

If the employee doesn't know what's happening to them, they won't be able to explain themselves and try to address the issue with some strategic tools, she said.

One tool Porter is using to cope with her brain fog is documenting all of her one-on-one meetings to remind her of the important points later.

As a leader herself, she passes the culture of openness along to her own team.

"I open with these truthful conversations about me to create that space for people to say `I am a person you can talk to (about) menopause or mental health or whatever you're working through,"' she said.

"I just appreciate it so much and I try to lead by that same type of philosophy."

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

Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.