Looking Forward To A World Without Menopause Women Having Babies At 60, Even 70? Why Not?

It’s the M-word, one I had never spent much time thinking about. But when I heard the promo for the evening news, it grabbed me. “Tonight, news of a discovery that could delay or even eliminate menopause.”

Why was I suddenly on the edge of my seat? Must be getting older.

Tom Brokaw was delivering the news, so it must be important: “Imagine a time when women no longer have to go through menopause? It may be closer than any of us would have thought, thanks to yet another big genetic discovery.”

My teen-age son wrinkled his nose. “That’s not the natural order of things,” he said.

“Quiet,” I said. “You don’t get a vote; you’re a guy.”

Robert Bazell, in his best science reporter voice, continued: “For Dr. Jonathan Tilley, it’s an extraordinary discovery, about one of the most profound and often difficult events in female middle age.”

Halfway into the report and they couldn’t even bring themselves to say the word.

Finally the doctor himself said it: “To think that a single gene could be so critical to something as important as egg loss and menopause.”

Then came the disclaimers: the gene was identified only in mice, human applications were a long way off, blah, blah, blah.

Switch to a woman whose “change” was a nightmare.

You name it; it had happened to her. Hot flashes had made her tear her clothes off; mood swings were Jekyll and Hyde in intensity; her zero sexual desire had put a strain on her marriage.

But now the laboratory mice offered hope. When their little mice genes were shut down, their ovaries kept working and the estrogen kept flowing.

So far so good.

Then the bomb dropped. The news continued: “It might even mean that women could have babies in their 60s and or even 70s.”

Now I’m all for choice, but it’s hard enough keeping up with kids in your 40s. Do women really want to have children at that age? Men do it, sure. But those men usually have a young wife and a nanny to help with the dirty work.

Women I’ve talked to have mixed feelings. They wouldn’t mind some help on menopause symptoms. But no one really wanted to go back.

They had survived menopause, and the sky hadn’t fallen. They’re happy and healthy, and their kids are grown and out of the house. Youth, in some ways, really is overrated, they say.

The report continued with more disclaimers - like the fast talking at the end of those commercials for miracle drugs that say blindness, impotence and the loss of feeling in your left arm could result.

There is concern, for example, that a continued higher level of estrogen might increase risks for breast cancer. So, older women could be dealing with dirty diapers and any side effects of a delayed menopause.

Despite all the risks, despite the concerns, despite it not being “the natural order of things,” I’m all for speeding up those human trials.

Why not have the options, the choices. Why let mice have all the fun.