Delayna Watkins knows what it’s like to have a hot flash interrupt your life.
The Baltimore area nurse remembers being in the middle of a presentation to Maryland hospital executives when she suddenly couldn’t think straight and could tell the hot flash was coming.
Watkins, 53, is a nurse and menopause wellness practitioner. She runs a menopause support group and creates TikTok videos to bring attention to menopause symptoms, specifically vasomotor symptoms or VMS. She says the anxiety these symptoms, like hot flashes and night sweats, create results in women feeling like they have no control.
Daily Nurse honors Delayna Watkins as the Nurse of the Week for educating women about VMS, offering practical techniques for bringing down the intensity of hot flashes through her Women’s Wellness Lounge and in her free weekly support group Black Women in Menopause, an online Facebook community of more than 2,000 women in the “menosquad.”
African American women are 60 percent more likely to experience VMS, says Dr. Makeba Williams, an OB-GYN and associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis certified menopause practitioner.
And while, on average, women experience hot flashes for about seven years, for African-American women, they last an average of 10 years.
Watkins wants to reach out to that population, which she says has been overlooked.
“These women are not being heard,” says Watkins, who uses her TikTok account to put a fun—and sexy—spin on menopause. In one, she cools herself — seductively — using a “cute” pink fan: “It’s not about the hot flash itself — it’s about doing something cute. It’s about changing the narrative of it being something negative.”
She says her mission is to have the conversation so we can share experiences and not be afraid. Women need to know this is all part of the feminine cycle. “It’s part of our trajectory,” she says.
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