Menopause Facts And Tips

Blame all the attention on baby boomers. More than 30 million women - including Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore - are fast approaching middle age and they want to be ready.

Time and other magazines splash it on their covers. Books about the subject fill bookstore shelves and have become best-sellers. Oprah Winfrey and her competitors explore it in television.

The subject is menopause. Once taboo, it's now entering mainstream attention as women are examining how hot flashes and mood swings will affect their lives and the people around them.

Roberta Parrish, 55, offers the boomers this advice:

Read as much as you can. If you become more knowledgeable, knowledge helps you understand things. Don't be afraid of it. You don't have a horrible illness.

No matter how it's faced, women know they have company.

It's like having a baby, said Beth Haas, 44, a hairdresser. You're so scared and then you think, 'Wait a minute. We've all got to do it this way.' That's exactly how I look at it, we're all going to go through it.

I do think everything's more matter-of-fact than it was for our mothers, said Marla Harlan, an mother of two.

Still, talk is tentative.

I wouldn't hesitate to talk about menopause, says Harlan, 41, who already has read several magazine articles on the topic. So far, she's only mentioned it to a couple of friends in passing.

I am curious, she says. But I can't believe my time is coming - that's major middle age.

In trendy California, women are talking about menopause at dinner parties and sleep-overs.

But in the my city, where 910,775 women - one in 10 - are between the menopausal target ages of 45 and 54, the discussion is hesitant.

It's still a pretty sensitive issue, says Jenni Roer, 37, a mother of two. A joking comment she made recently about menopause backfired. Some women in the group were not amused.

We're not at a comfort level yet here where most people are talking about it openly. It's still something you would talk about with people you really trust or in close-knit groups, she says.

Women in their 50s, already sporting estrogen patches and swallowing progesterone pills to help them over the rough spots, are emerging as role models.

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