14 DAY TRIAL // Menopause appears in women after the end of their reproductive years. They can no longer bear children naturally, and a host of hormonal imbalances and changes occur simultaneously. Researchers in the UK now believe they know why menopause evolved in women, and the answer is weird, to say the least.
Experts from the University of Turku, the University of Exeter, the University of Sheffield, and Stanford University say that the process appeared, in part, in order to minimize competition between mothers and their daughters-in-law.
In a paper to be published in the August 23 issue of the journal Ecology Letters, the team says that, if an older woman, such as a grandmother, were to have a child late in life, at the same time as their daughters-in-laws, then the chances of the two babies surviving would drop by 50 percent.
Another significant reason is that menopause allows females to focus their attention on their grandchildren, freeing the parents to either perform more socially-important tasks, or make other babies, Science Blog reports.