Objectives: To examine perimenstrual symptoms in relation to hot flushes and depressive symptoms among 755 pre- and postmenopausal women aged 40–60 years drawn from a general population in Puebla, Mexico.

Methods: Hot flushes and depressed mood during the past 2 weeks were queried, along with cramps and other symptoms experienced during or before menstruation. Relationships among perimenstrual symptoms were examined by factor analyses. Logistic regression was used to assess determinants of hot flushes and determinants of depressed mood at midlife.

Results: Fifty-four percent of the women reported abdominal cramping (cólicos) during menstruation; fewer reported irritability (8%) and depressed mood (9%). Gastrointestinal complaints were most frequently volunteered (12%), followed by breast tenderness (10%) and mid-back pain (9%). Emotional symptoms clustered separately from perimenstrual symptoms. In bivariate analyses, abdominal cramping and waist pain were associated with hot flushes at midlife (p <0.01) and remained significant determinants after controlling for potential confounders. Depressed mood with menstruation was associated with depressed mood at midlife (p <0.05). After controlling for education, socioeconomic status and parity, perimenstrual irritability and depressed mood raised the risk of midlife depressed mood, although significance was lost after adding current hot flushes and trouble sleeping.

Conclusions: The relationship between abdominal cramps and hot flushes may be hormonal or sociocultural. The lack of association between depressed mood with menstruation and depressed mood at midlife after controlling for current hot flushes and trouble sleeping suggests that concurrent difficulties were more important than past history of depression in this population.