Meet the Texas doctor leading the menopause revolution

Corrections & Clarifications: An earlier version of this story misspelled Dr. Haver’s first name. It has been updated.
If middle-aged women were to start a revolution, their leader might be Dr. Mary Claire Haver. They would be armed with weighted vests and chicken breasts, health checklists and fiber supplements.
This Texas OB-GYN is pushing for women to no longer accept dismissive doctors. She is addressing their hot flashes and brain fog, their dry skin and fatigue. Haver is at the center of a new direction for understanding and treating perimenopause and menopause
She is helping lead this “menopause revolution.”
“Menopause is inevitable, suffering is not,” Haver, 56, says in a call from her newest clinic in Galveston, Texas.
She’s just off a tour for her bestselling book “The New Menopause” and is one of 12 leading experts featured in the documentary “The M Factor” now streaming on PBS. It is the first documentary addressing menopause, the health crisis that will affect 1.2 billion women worldwide in the next five years. The “M Factor” is so full of new information about menopause, and a webinar accompanying it will count as continuing-education credit for medical professionals.
“Women need to understand what’s happening, clinicians need to understand,” Haver says. “We can do better.”
When does menopause start?And what to know about how to go through it easier
Menopause has existed for as long as women have lived long enough to reach it. And for generations, women accepted it as part of life. Its existence was reduced to punchlines on TV sitcoms and jokes from men about women being crazy. Women who asked their doctors about menopause were often told to turn on a fan, say goodbye to their sex lives and accept their fate.
“They were seen as whiny or crazy,” Haver says. “They were told it’s all in their heads.”
But in the past few years, Haver and other doctors have begun changing the way women approach perimenopause – the seven to 10 years before menopause – and menopause. And the way they are treating it.
As more Gen X and older millennial women begin menopause and perimenopause, they are sharing their stories and demanding better treatment. They are producing movies and TV shows − “Better Things” and writing books − Miranda July’s “All Fours” was called one of the first great novels about perimenopause.
They are not OK with experiencing it like their mothers did. Menopause also has become big business, with more than 40% of U.S. women in perimenopause, menopause or are postmenopausal. And most women are in worse health during menopause, which can last one-third of women’s lives.
“I’m in menopause,” Halle Berry yelled outside the U.S. Capitol earlier this year as she advocated for federal money for education and menopause treatment.
Drew Barrymore had her first hot flash while talking to Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler in a live interview. Salma Hayek revealed that she wanted her character in “Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard” to be going through menopause, just as she was. And Naomi Watts has tried to normalize conversations around menopause by talking about it and starting her own line of menopause products.
“We have a gender health gap,” Haver says. “Women are ready to be advocates for themselves. They want better choices than their mothers have, and they are embracing it.”
Women who see Haver in the airport or out at restaurants often approach her with the enthusiasm some women share for Taylor Swift. They notice her dark hair and oversized glasses − and sometimes her white sweatshirt that says “Menopausal” across it − and want to thank her and tell her how her work has changed their lives.
They follow her on social media, one of more than 4 million across Instagram and TikTok.
“It’s so sweet. They want to say thank you,” Haver says.
Just a few years ago, she was one of them. She began her menopause revolution in a personal way.
She was tired, had joint pain and experienced hot flashes. “My patients had been complaining about this. I guess this is menopause,” she says. “But it took me six months to say: ‘I’m in menopause.’ “
As an OB-GYN, she spent most of her time treating pregnant women, delivering babies and doing surgeries. She remembers that as a medical student she had maybe one hour of training on menopause, another six during her OB-GYN rotation.
“Doctors are doing their best. They aren’t bad; they just don’t know enough about menopause,” she says. “We are doing a terrible job as a medical system training.”
So she started researching and posting on social media at the urging of her two daughters. When hundreds of women asked if their “frozen shoulder” was related to menopause, she learned more.
She began to specialize in menopause and earlier this year joined a group of more than 200 clinicians, researchers, professors and more who wrote a letter to the British medical journal The Lancet, whom they said promoted outdated ideas about menopause. They called themselves the ‘menoposse’ and are working to better educate women and doctors. Many of them are featured in “The M Factor” and are pushing for more federal funding and new training.
What us perimenopause?Experts explain the typical age and symptoms to expect.
When Haver makes an Instagram video, it’s often at her kitchen table, her hair pulled back and without makeup. She wears athletic gear and sometimes her weighted vest, which helps build muscle, something that’s especially important during menopause when women are at a higher risk for muscle loss.
Her feed is full of tips and explainers − how hormone therapy can differ, for example − but also information to empower women to advocate for themselves. She has a way of speaking that is both urgent and quick, but slow with the drawl of her Louisiana roots.
“Here’s my mission: that every woman can confidently walk into her clinician’s office and have an informed conversation about menopause and about her options and about how it’s going to affect her life,” she says. “And women like that message. They want to be informed. They’re realizing that’s kind of hard to do in the way we are training our health care providers.”
The first question she suggests women ask their doctor: What kind of menopause training do you have?
In redefining it, menopause is no longer simply a year since a woman’s last menstrual period. But it’s about what happens to your body, which Haver says is “cardiology, it’s neurology, it’s muscular-skeletal. It’s everything”
Her goal is to help women better understand what is happening to them and their options, which include diet, exercise and often what she refers to as menopause hormone therapy. A lack of estrogen affects more than reproductive health. Lowered estrogen also increases risk for conditions such as diabetes, dementia and cardiovascular disease.
“In my clinic, we get them back to feeling like a human being again. We first want to get them out of that time of night sweats, of being tired all the time, of feeling bad,” she says. “And then we build a better brain and better body so you can thrive for 30 years. It’s time to give back to yourself.”
A weighted vest. With hormones in decline during menopause, which leads to muscle and bone loss, a weighted vest can help build muscle. Tips: Pick one that fits comfortably and is not too tight. Start with 5% to 10% of your weight. Work to a maximum of 10% of weight.
Resistance training, lifting weights. This helps maintain strong bones and muscles.
Information. She recommends books including “Generation M” by Jessica Shepherd; “The Menopause Manifesto” by Jen Gunter; and “The Menopause Brain” by Lisa Mosconi.
Diet. Fill your plate with whole grains, whole foods, fiber and protein. Haver’s book “The Galveston Diet” addresses this. Consider supplements such as fiber, creatine and collagen.
Conversations with your clinician. Discuss the pros and cons of menopause hormone therapy and the latest scientific research. Prepare for the conversation with information from credible sites such as The Menopause Society.
And for more on all this, you can catch Haver on “The M Factor.” It will air on PBS stations and will stream on PBS.com. If you would like to host a screening, visit themfactorfilm.com.