Empowering Women Through Midlife Transitions: A Conversation with Amanda Maingi

On Peri and Pause the podcast, host interviews women’s health nurse practitioner Amanda Maingi, who shares why she chose women’s health, her education at Georgetown, and how menopause and perimenopause received limited focus in training despite women spending a third of life in this stage. Amanda describes noticing gaps while working in a fast-paced traditional GYN clinic, where time constraints and protocol-driven care could miss the “whole woman” experience. She contrasts younger patients’ typically more straightforward visits with the complexity of midlife, highlighting under-research, life stressors, and chronic conditions. Common perimenopause symptoms often mislabeled as anxiety or depression include sleep disruption, heart palpitations, brain fog, irritability, overwhelm, and feeling out of control. The episode emphasizes validation, individualized high-touch care beyond algorithms, and addresses misconceptions that hormone therapy is inherently dangerous, stressing risk-benefit tailoring and comprehensive evaluation.00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro00:53 Why Womens Health02:17 Academic Journey Highlights04:09 Menopause Education Gap05:24 Clinic Reality and Missing Care08:57 Midlife vs Younger Patients13:14 Symptoms Mistaken for Anxiety17:43 Beyond Protocols Individual Care19:34 Patch And Pill Problem21:21 Telehealth Versus High Touch22:56 Layered Whole Woman Care26:03 Validation First Visit28:42 Hormone Therapy Myths30:07 New Patient Expectations31:53 Outro And Sign Off32:23 Recording The Closing Script34:16 Final Takeaway Message------This podcast exists to normalize, explain, and elevate the midlife healthcare conversation—so women feel informed, believed, and empowered to demand better care for their bodies and lives.Visit https://periandpause.com for more info