Almost half of women in midlife experience poor sexual wellbeing, and women in perimenopause – typically in their 40s – experience twice the levels of sexual dysfunction as pre-menopausal women.

An Australian study believed to be the biggest of its kind to examine sexual function and sexually related personal distress in women aged 40-69 revealed a big increase in symptoms of female sexual dysfunction as women start the menopausal transition – known as perimenopause .

Symptoms of dysfunction included problems with sexual desire, arousal and orgasm. Low sexual desire (13.3 per cent), impaired arousal (13.1 per cent) and poor sexual self-image (12.8 per cent) were the most prevalent sexual dysfunctions.

The fact that 25 per cent reported poor sexual self-image without a physical dysfunc

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