Effects of menopausal status on sleep in midlife women.

Disturbed sleep is a common complaint of midlife women often attributed to menopause, though few studies have examined direct effects of menopausal status on sleep. Our objective was to assess this issue in healthy midlife women. We examined sleep polysomnographically on 2 consecutive nights in 25 women (ages 45 - 56 yrs) without sleep complaints (13 pre-menopausal; 12 post-menopausal).