According to Healio, insomnia symptoms may become more prominent during later menopausal stages.

Colleen Ciano, PhD, RN, CNE, of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, and colleagues evaluated data from the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN) on 3,302 women (mean age, 46 years) to identify a stage of perimenopause when insomnia symptoms become more prevalent during the transition to menopause.

Change in nighttime insomnia symptoms over time was used to determine whether perimenopausal stage (early vs. late), years per stage and surgical menopause influenced an insomnia disorder. Follow-up was conducted for 10 years.

At baseline, 6% of participants were identified as pre-perimenopausal or perimenopausal. After adjustment for baseline menopausal status, visit and individual baseline sleep measures, a difference was found between the perimenopausal stage groups for the development of insomnia (P = .003). Compared with participants who progressed from early to late to postmenopausal, participants who remained in the early stage were 0.82 times less likely to develop insomnia (P = .015). Similarly, participants who remained in the early stage were 0.79 times less likely than those who progressed from early to postmenopausal (P = .005) and 0.65 times less likely than those who progressed from early to surgical menopause (P < .001). Compared with participants who progressed from early to surgical menopause, participants who progressed from early to late perimenopause were 0.7 times less likely (P = .016) and participants who progressed from early to late to postmenopausal were 0.769 times less likely to develop an insomnia disorder (P = .036).

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