Menopause 'helps family'

A woman's biological clock may be nature's way of encouraging mothers and their new daughters-in-law to work together to raise families.

Scientists have been delving into 200-year-old historical records from Finland in an attempt to discover why women tend to stop reproducing in their fifties but live for many years longer.

The University of Turku findings indicate that mature women go through the menopause so as to concentrate on being grandmothers rather than bearing children.