When Laura Okafor was around 15 years old, she noticed changes in her mother’s personality.
Jokes her mother would have normally found funny began to upset her instead. At times, she seemed sad and reserved. For Okafor, an only child raised in Germany, this shifted the family dynamic. Her mother was still as attentive and loving as she’d always been, but her happiness seemed dim.
Okafor realizes now that her mother, who was in her late forties at the time, was going through perimenopause. Perimenopause, or the menopause transition, is the time leading up to menopause, during which the ovaries release eggs less frequently and produce less estrogen, the female sex hormone.
Women at this time usually have shorter or more irregular menstrual cycles as estrogen levels sometimes spike and drop. These changes bring a host of symptoms, including night sweats, mood changes, trouble sleeping, vaginal dryness, bladder issues, joint pain, and trouble concentrating.
“In hindsight, I’m sure my mother didn’t even know what it was. Twenty years ago in Germany and elsewhere in the world, the menopause transition was not talked about. It’s really still not talked about today,” says Okafor.
When Okafor, now in her early forties, started talking to her mother about all this decades later, she was intrigued that her mother only remembered her physical changes, mostly the hot flashes. She didn’t talk about any of the emotional symptoms she experienced as well.
Those conversations were Okafor’s aha moment, she says. In 2019, she launched a blog called Perry, bringing together experts from all facets of healthcare to give women (and people with a uterus) a place to learn about perimenopause and menopause.
A Place to Go for Community
In 2021, Okafor launched an app based on the blog, Perry. While it provides a trove of vetted information from experts, the focus is on community.
“I really built Perry with me in mind,” Okafor says. “Our mothers do prepare us for our period, then later on for pregnancy, but that next chapter was such a black box for me. There is not much preparation or coaching from our mothers or from society.”
That lack of preparation and support was in stark contrast to what she experienced during her two pregnancies, another huge transition in a person’s life for those who embark on it. And while not everyone chooses to become a mother, every woman will go through menopause, Okafor notes.
“I was on so many apps, even when I was tracking my fertility before I got pregnant,” Okafor says, adding that she turned to trusted household baby-focused brands such as the Honest Company, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, and Baby Center for support.
She felt very well taken care of not just by her team of healthcare providers, but by these resources that were quick to answer her questions and let her know what was and was not normal.
“There is so much to learn and [ways to] prepare yourself for pregnancy. That support system doesn’t match the support system for a woman, say, seven years later, when she’s entering perimenopause,” she says.
Menopause for Millennials
A millennial herself, Okafor asked herself how she could prepare the generation of millennials, who are just now entering perimenopause, for the next big transition in their life.
“It’s a misconception that it doesn’t happen until you’re in your fifties and that the only symptoms are hot flashes. It’s really a journey, and for some it can cause quite severe symptoms for quite some time,” Okafor says.
Before starting Perry, Okafor worked as a brand manager for major brands where she largely focused on products for underserved consumers who have been historically ignored. Okafor, who comes from German and Nigerian parents, managed Black hair care and feminine products for people living in African countries.
She learned a key strategy from working in brand development: Rather than building a brand that talked at people, especially women, it was vital to include them in the conversation.
“We’re building a trusted resource brand for community content and ultimately solutions for what can help along this process in a woman’s life,” she says.
She knew that community was key.
“We’re all looking for community and advice, we want to have that validation. That’s why I started Perry as a community-first platform,” Crain explains.
Expert-Vetted, Peer-Reviewed
Now 70,000 users strong, Perry has become a digital wellness platform that has expanded to include Perry Academy, a multi-disciplinary e-learning platform aimed at educating healthcare practitioners.
Perry has also teamed up with the National Menopause Foundation to designate September as Perimenopause Awareness Month, an initiative now recognized by the governors of 17 states. As part of that project, now in its second year, Okafor and a team of health professionals and patient advocates recently traveled to Washington, DC, for a congressional briefing on urgent policy needs and research gaps.
But through it all Perry remains first and foremost a community forum, notes Okafor. That was clear from its launch, when Okafor made a conscious decision to create a safe space where people could connect and learn about perimenopause and menopause outside of social media.
“We realized that because it is such an intimate conversation, you don’t want to see those conversations in the same feed as fishing photos. It’s important to be able to share in that safe space,” she says.
The platform backs these core “peer-to-peer” conversations with vetted information about various aspects of the menopausal transition. This balance allows the app to care for the community in a unique way.
The app includes blog posts and podcast episodes featuring experts — including top fitness and nutrition experts, psychologists, and ob-gyns — who break down topics like how your body changes during these years and what treatment options are available.
There are also Perry Big Sisters, members who offer helpful product reviews, and health experts who weigh in on whether the product seems like it may or may not work, from their point of view.
App users can reach out to each other to ask questions like, “Has anyone else had decreased libido one day and surging libido the next?” or “Does someone have a recommendation for a menopause specialist in my city?”
Okafor says the support of a community can be a crucial resource to help people make these conversations about menopause as mainstream as those about pregnancy.
One of the most popular community subgroups on the app deals with the ubiquitous question: “Is this normal?”
“Community as care is important, especially during the more rocky times in your life,” Okafor says. “That peer-to-peer support is so incredibly important for validation and stepping out of that isolation that perimenopause causes.”
The Takeaway
- Women going through perimenopause may not realize that the hormonal changes that mark this transitional period are responsible for sometimes challenging symptoms.
- Laura Okafor founded the digital platform Perry to provide a safe space for peer-to-peer perimenopause support as well as expert-vetted info.
- Okafor wants conversations about perimenopause and menopause to become as normalized as those about pregnancy.
