Specialist assessment and long-term management for women experiencing loss of ovarian function before the age of 40
Being told your ovaries have stopped working normally before 40 can feel disorienting, isolating, and frankly unfair, especially when the people around you are years away from thinking about menopause. Whatever you’re feeling right now is valid.
Our Premature Ovarian Insufficiency Clinic provides the specialist, long-term care POI actually needs, because it isn’t simply “early menopause” to be managed the same way, and treating it like standard menopause care can miss what matters most for your long-term health.
This diagnosis can bring up a lot — grief, fertility questions, worry about your future health. You deserve support for all of it, not just a prescription.
POI affects around 1 in 100 women before the age of 40, and it carries real long-term implications for bone and cardiovascular health that make treatment genuinely important, not optional. Importantly, the breast cancer risk associated with HRT in the well-known Women’s Health Initiative study doesn’t apply to women with POI — for this group, hormone replacement is generally recommended right through to the natural average age of menopause, around 51, to replace hormones your body would otherwise still be producing.
POI is a long-term diagnosis, and your care should be too. We monitor your bone and cardiovascular health over time, adjust your hormone replacement as needed, and stay involved in the conversation about fertility for as long as it’s relevant to you, whether that’s now or years down the line.
for cardiovascular and metabolic risk assessment alongside POI care
It’s when the ovaries stop working normally before the age of 40, leading to reduced hormone production and irregular or absent periods — it affects around 1 in 100 women.
It’s related, but not quite the same, and it’s treated differently, because the long-term hormone replacement needs and the risk-benefit picture are different from menopause occurring at the typical age.
No — the breast cancer risk associated with HRT that’s often quoted comes from studies of women starting HRT around the average age of menopause. That risk profile doesn’t apply in the same way to women with POI, for whom hormone replacement is generally recommended until the natural average menopause age.
This depends on your individual situation — some women with POI still ovulate occasionally, and donor egg treatment is also an option for many. We’ll talk through this honestly as part of your care.
Generally through to around the natural average age of menopause, roughly 51, after which the conversation shifts to match standard menopause guidance
Book your Premature Ovarian Insufficiency assessment and get support built for your specific situation.
