Melinda French Gates Struggled To Get Perimenopause Diagnosis Despite 'Privileged Situation'

Melinda French Gates is using her platform to raise awareness for perimenopause following her shocking revelation on the barriers to viable healthcare. Speaking with Norah O'Donnell on CBS News' Healthful podcast, the philanthropist gave insight into what to know about perimenopause while opening up about her experience with the condition and how challenging it was to find a doctor who could properly treat her.

"It was kind of unbelievable to me that, even in this, you know, unbelievably privileged situation I'm in, where I feel like I can get some of the best health care, it took me three doctors to really diagnose what I was going through and to get the right treatments for where I was," Gates said. While emphasizing that it "wasn't because anybody was doing the wrong thing," Gates pointed to a deeper issue within the medical field's approach to women's health. "It's because of what I now know, which is only a third, one third, of OB-GYNs in this country are trained in menopause."

As a result, Gates is doing what she does best by putting her billions to work and investing in women's health herself. Her chat with O'Donnell came after she announced a $215 million global expansion into women's health to advance access to contraception and maternal care, while increasing research on menopause. "It's just blaringly obvious that women's health is fundamental — she has to be well to do well in life," French Gates told AP News.

Melinda French Gates is going full throttle on her commitment to women's health and improving treatment for menopause. When announcing her $215 million investment into women's health, she paired the reveal with a New York Times op-ed where she called for a "menopause revolution" in the U.S., arguing that "better training is an obvious place to start."

The billionaire philanthropist was in her 40s when she first started to experience symptoms of perimenopause, French Gates revealed on the Healthful podcast. Still in her marriage at the time, long before Melinda French Gates' post-divorce transformation that has heads turning, she explained how she had just had her last child with Bill Gates while in her late 30s, and thought to herself, "'Are you kidding me?'" The timeline touches on whether or not it's possible to get pregnant while you are in perimenopause.

With her call for greater investment into menopause research and care, French Gates advocated for policy changes, including expanded insurance coverage for menopause treatments and stronger workplace protections for middle-aged women. "We need additional research to learn more about the range of hormonal and other changes that happen with menopause ... and to accelerate new breakthroughs and treatments," French Gates declared in her op-ed. With her latest investment, it brings her total commitment to improve women's health globally to $600 million, she revealed on Instagram. "It's time to make women's health a priority — because when women are healthier, everyone benefits," she wrote. "That's the future we should be building."