Perimenopause is the period around menopause, which starts at 12 months without a period. During this period, a woman may notice some symptoms, including menstrual irregularities, with a general tendency for cycles to be longer. In addition, other symptoms may appear such as hot flashes, insomnia or vaginal dryness, among others, due to the decrease of estrogen levels in the blood.
As far as fertility is concerned, we consider that women have the possibility of spontaneous pregnancy until the definitive arrival of menopause, although it is true that the chances of a spontaneous pregnancy decrease considerably as the woman's age advances and she approaches menopause. The reason for these difficulties in conception is due to the decrease in the number of eggs, which is accompanied by a worsening of egg quality and an increasingly high percentage of aneuploidies or genetic alterations in the remaining eggs. All these factors make spontaneous pregnancy and even pregnancy with Assisted Reproduction techniques extremely difficult.
In many cases, the possibility of pregnancy with one's own eggs is so low that the only option for achieving it is egg donation. This technique solves the main factor that makes pregnancy difficult during perimenopause, which is the oocyte factor, offering many possibilities of pregnancy to women who are in this period.