Christina Newell has an enviable media career, helpful husband and an
intelligent lively four-year-old son. Yet what should be the prime of her life is, at 45,
completely ruined by the relentless misery of an unexpected early menopause. "I'm
exhausted, I can't sleep, I suffer from hot flushes and carpal tunnel syndrome - pain and
numbness in the arm which means I can't hold anything for more than 20 seconds, my legs
and hips ache constantly and the hormones are raging.
"I knew, being an older mother, that I wouldn't be much good on the football pitch, but I thought I would make it up intellectually. Now when Joshua asks me to read Teddy Robinson for the fifth time I burst into tears. He looks up over his Fruitibix and I'm having a hot flush and he asks me what's wrong.
"It's unbearable having to say to a sweet, adoring child that Mummy is too tired again and again and again. At this stage you are their whole world: playmate, best friend, mother, the lot. But I feel like his grandmother. I am taking HRT, but feel I have no choice. There is breast cancer in the family so I think I wouldn't normally have risked it, but I had to do something to try and be there for Josh.
"My reaction to any problem is to read as much as possible about it. Yet in all the books on menopause, there is nothing about menopause and toddlers. It makes me feel like an outsider. All the literature talks about 'now your children are leaving home' - the emptynest syndrome which those middle life years have always been associated with.
"No one tells you how to cope when you're in floods of tears, your limbs are so heavy you cannot lift your arm and there's a bright-eyed little toddler pulling at your sleeve.
"I know there have always been women having children right up to the menopause, but they were the last children and there were probably older siblings around to help. Nor were women pursuing careers in the same ambitious, all-consuming way in those days."
Newell is convinced that there is a link between Nineties careers and early menopause, leaving many women in the same position. "Women are having children later because of their careers. But these same, stressful careers which make them put off the children, I'm sure, are bringing an early menopause, too.
"I have several friends also going through an early menopause - a 38-year-old mother of three and another of 45. Is it just coincidence that they are also my most high-achieving friends?"
Bridget Miles agrees with Newell. Mother of three children under six and equally high-flying, she, too, is menopausal long before she expected it. "Because I was working I kept putting off children, then suddenly found myself heading rapidly for 40. I had two daughters in quick succession at 38 and 39, felt fine, got re-established in my career, then had an accidental pregnancy at 43 and begged another career break. Now I'm 45, menopausal with three small children and I cannot cope.
"From a fit, lively, intellectually fulfilled older mother I've turned into a drugged-out zombie, swallowing every antidepressant and menopause treatment available. I can barely make myself a cup of tea and I sit there sweating, aching and bursting into tears practically every time I look at these lovely children."
Like Newell she also feels that she is alone. "I can't talk to anyone: having children later in life is meant to make you 'young', so that's how everyone expects you to be, not starting on the ageing process.
"I'm sure that trying to do so much brought it on. My mother had hers late, my older sister, who had her children earlier and doesn't work, shows no signs of starting."
Medically, there is no evidence that stress can bring on an early menopause (although it is acknowledged to interfere with menstrual cycles) but the various menopause clinics we spoke to agreed that no research has been done. Usually, although not always, a woman will follow her mother's pattern, yet all the women interviewed were going against the family trend and the main difference they saw between themselves and their mothers was the nature of their careers.
Increasing anecdotal evidence is needed to prompt the research, says a researcher at the menopause clinic in Guy's Hospital, in Southwark. There is, however, evidence that more and more women are having children later. Even if a link between early menopause and stress is not proved, there will be increasing numbers of women dealing with the peak of their careers, first toddlers and menopause at the same time over the next few years - a modern combination for which there is no support network.
"Of course women have always worked and have always been having children into their forties," says Pamela Armstrong, the former newscaster and author of Beating the Biological Clock - The Joys and Challenges of Late Motherhood. "The difference today is that whereas it used to be the eighth or ninth child, now it is the first or second.
"In earlier days, women were practised at motherhood by the time they had their late children, whereas these women are unskilled mothers. Often they have come straight from the boardroom, where everybody jumps at their word into a world of toddlers who behave very differently."
Interestingly, Armstrong discovered while researching her book that it is not just "career women" who are delaying motherhood. "Working-class women are also choosing to have children much later."
It is a result of what Armstrong calls the collapse of the meal ticket. "These women realise that, in these days of broken marriages and relationships, it is likely that they will face single motherhood and are putting off children until they are financially secure."
If this is the case, first-time motherhood and menopause will soon be a common combination, replacing the traditional empty-nest syndrome. At the moment, Newell and Miles (not their real names) are on extended sick leave and both are frightened of losing their jobs. Neither has told her employer the specific nature of her problems - they are, after all, says Miles, meant to be superwomen.
"As a society, we have to take a closer look at how we support and care for mothers with young infants," says Armstrong. "The support networks that we have are not adapting to women's changing circumstances."