Changes in reproductive indices in Chuvashian women whose maturation was during World War II

Objectives: The aim of the present study was to evaluate whether Chuvashian women whose maturation was during World War II and the subsequent rehabilitation period were different from women born at other times in terms of age at menarche and age at menopause. Design: The cohort included 745 Chuvashian females aged 18-90 years; age at menarche (N = 653), ranged from 10 to 24 years (mean 15.42 ± 2.11). Data regarding menopausal age was obtained from 322 females born between 1915 and 1950 (mean 48.5 ± 4.6). We computed descriptive statistics of the age of menopause and the age of menarche for different birth cohorts; we compared the mean values by Student's t-test and the variances by F-test. Results: The "expected" maturation period of women whose age at menarche >20 and most women whose age at menopause ≤38 was between 1939 and 1950. Women whose age at menarche >20 showed normal parameters regarding age at menopause, and women whose age at menopause was ≤38 showed normal parameters of age at menarche. The variances of age at menopause in women born from 1925 to 1936 was almost two-fold higher than in women born earlier and afterwards (p = 0.0003). The difference in the mean ages was significant for both menarche (p = 0.005) and menopause (p = 0.001). Conclusion: Periods of socioeconomic disasters such as war and famine can influence women's age at menarche and age at menopause. Women, whose maturation occurred during or immediately after World War II, showed a higher mean age at menarche and a wider dispersion of age at menopause than other women.