New research shows women in the UK are turning to AI to help diagnose medical issues because their pain is being dismissed by doctors.

Nurofen’s fourth annual Gender Pain Gap Index reveals the scale of pain dismissal experienced by women across the UK and the devastating impact it has on their lives and their lack of trust in the healthcare system. When dismissed by doctors, women are turning to AI to seek out answers, risking their health and misdiagnoses.

The findings of the Gender Pain Gap Index show that:

• More than half (53%) of women feel their pain is ignored or dismissed - rising to 73% among 18–24-year-olds, compared to 40% of those over 55

• 74% of Black women and 65% of Asian women report being dismissed, compared to 51% of White women

• 94% of women who experienced dismissal say it had a negative impact on them

• Nearly half (46%) reported becoming reluctant to seek help again; more than a third (35%) said their trust in the medical system had been impacted, with 13% giving up seeking help entirely

With so many women not finding the support they need from doctors, sadly 3 in 4 (74%) have used unverified sources for answers, with 1 in 5 (21%) using AI tools like ChatGPT. This puts women’s health in danger with misinformation and unreliable sources.

Women are suffering because of medical misogyny and it’s time for the gender pain gap to be closed for good. One in six women experience severe pain every day, and are in more pain, more often than men according to the new research published. And one in two women believe their pain is ignored or dismissed because of their gender.

The new report states nearly three in five (57%) women say they felt dismissed by their GP (57%), with 67% of women feeling that they were dismissed by healthcare professionals (GPs, specialist consultants, and pharmacists) compared to 53% of men.

Penny East, CEO of the Fawcett Society, said: “The Gender Pain Gap is a long-standing equality issue affecting women and girls. When more than half of British women continue to feel their pain is dismissed and millions are resorting to unverified sources for health advice, we’re seeing a systemic problem at play. Having our pain minimised affects our wellbeing, our worth and our health outcomes.”

The UK government’s Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) warned women’s health is not being sufficiently prioritised in the Government’s system-wide NHS reforms, in March this year.

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Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee and Labour MP Sarah Owen said: “Our inquiry has shown that too many girls and young women are still being let down by a system that fails them at every stage, from the lack of access to a school nurse to dismissal in primary care, and they continue to face unnecessarily painful procedures in diagnosis of relatively common conditions. The Government’s response to the Committee’s 2024 ‘medical misogyny’ report was deeply disappointing, and as our new report sets out, the Committee is not convinced that the menstrual and gynaecological needs of young women and girls has been sufficiently prioritised in wider reforms to the healthcare system.”

In April 2026, former Health Minister Wes Streeting vowed to stop women being “gaslit” by doctors as he relaunched the women’s health strategy for England, saying, “[Women] have for so long been let down by a healthcare system that too often gaslights women, treating their pain as an inconvenience and their symptoms as an overreaction.”

“It’s clear the system is failing women. Women’s voices must be central to delivering effective, respectful and empathetic care. We need to hit medical misogyny where it hurts – the wallet. Today’s renewed strategy will tackle the issues women face every day and ensure no woman is left fighting to be heard.”

Penny East, CEO of the Fawcett Society, said: “The government’s renewed Women’s Health Strategy is a welcome step, but policy must be met with action and wider societal change: we need everyone from the NHS to brands to employers to confront this issue and make improvements in the way women are supported. Nurofen’s Pain Pass is an example of a tool that provides women with practical support to communicate their pain. We need much more innovation and education throughout the health system; women are living with the daily consequences of not being heard.”

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By Dr Radha Modgil

If you haven’t heard the Twenty One Pilots track Stressed Out, then take a listen - it encapsulates feeling completely overwhelmed and the longing to return to a time when we felt a bit freer. It’s the perfect track to put on your playlist during April’s Stress Awareness Month.

Stress has an insidious way of creeping up on us, like a cloud covering the sun, and before we know it, we have tipped from perhaps low stress levels into complete and utter overwhelm and even burnout if we don’t notice and act fast to change things.

And it’s more common than you think - research shows 85% of us experience stress at some point and 63% at least on a weekly basis, with women 10% more likely to experience stress than men daily. In 2026, research shows 66% of women experience stress at least weekly.

Stress, in itself, is not the problem. It’s actually a normal physiological response to a threat.

Back in the days when we were at risk of being attacked by wild animals our ‘stress response’ was absolutely on point. And even today, if we are in acute danger, our bodies go into a made to measure ‘fight or flight ‘mode and we have a surge of adrenaline and cortisol (our stress hormone) that allow us to either tackle the threat or to evade it. When the perceived danger has passed, these chemicals and hormones go back to their baseline normal levels.

The problem is that we can fall into the trap of perceiving all kinds of things that make us feel threatened psychologically or emotionally, rather than being in actual physical danger. These ‘mis-triggers’ are things we might frequently encounter in all of our life zones: work pressure, moving home, family disputes, financial worries, relationship breakdown, friendship conflicts, bereavement or illness.

Even with these everyday triggers, stress can actually be useful in small, short doses because adrenaline and cortisol can help us perform better, be more productive and make us more motivated to take action and solve problems.

The issue comes when it’s chronic with no resolution, excessive in amount and pervasive in nature. In addition, it has a damaging impact on us physically, mentally and emotionally when we don’t notice it, ignore it, or don’t try to reduce it.

Chronic stress keeps cortisol and adrenaline persistently high and that impacts our bodies and brains in all kinds of ways. We’re then at higher risk of mental health impacts: anxiety, depression, irritability, memory issues, poor decisions, difficulty concentrating and insomnia. It also contributes to a higher risk of physical health problems: high blood pressure, weakened immunity, digestive issues, muscular tension and weight gain. And finally, there’s a higher risk of relationship breakdown, of isolating yourself, using things like alcohol or smoking to ‘escape’ how we feel and of neglecting self-care.

If you are tired of feeling stressed out then here are my 7 ways to tackle it:

Acknowledge your stress

It’s all too tempting to just carry on because we are busy and because we just ‘haven’t got the time’ to deal with it. Avoid going into denial. Are people noticing you’re getting more irritable? Are you finding it difficult to relax? Are you sleeping badly? Have you started getting tension in your shoulders or jaw? Have you stopped going for that regular coffee with a friend or to that gym class that makes you feel better? Name it because when we do, we can then take control of it. Stop, take a breath and tell the people around you who love you what is going on.

Identify the cause

Often, we can pinpoint the problems in our lives that are making us feel so stressed, but sometimes it is not always so easy. Write down what is happening right now in each zone of your life and score how you are feeling in each. This can give you some clues. If it’s still tricky then ask a close friend to talk things through with you. It can be helpful when you have written the things that are making you worry, to list them in order of impact out of 10. You can then tackle maybe a combination of lower scoring issues, or alternatively one high scoring problem, depending on how easy they are to tackle. Be honest about what is causing you to feel stressed; people, situations, relationships, work. No one and no thing should be pushed away just because there is some fear in naming them.

Set boundaries

Before we can move into problem solving, we need to create some space and energy from somewhere - not easy when we are so worn down and tired. One way to do this is to set some boundaries. Start saying ‘no’ to things - other people’s demands and activities that are taking away unnecessary energy and time. Look at your day, week and month ahead in advance and start freeing things up in your diary. Only plan to do a certain number of things in any week, and only go to a certain number of locations in one day. Prioritise the time you go to bed and how much sleep you will have. These things will give you enough reserve to start the next step.

Problem solve

Some things can improve and it’s helpful to put your energy into what you can control and what you can change. Avoid metaphorically banging your head against a brick wall trying to change people, things and situations that are out of your control. Break down the problem into smaller issues and next to each one write down some ideas you could take, or actions you could delegate to someone else to support you with. Begin small, but be determined and persistent because once you start seeing progress and improvement, you will feel less stressed and much more motivated to keep going.

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Find your strategies

We all have certain things that make us feel less stressed; what are your top three go-to strategies? Science shows moving our bodies helps by releasing dopamine and serotonin which boost our mood; meditation and mindfulness help us relax; deep breathing activates our parasympathetic nervous system which reduces stress; being out in nature lifts our mood;, and eating well, sleeping well and reducing screen time can also support us. You might find music, art, crafting, baking, gardening, writing, films, books and hobbies help. And don’t forget to laugh, see people who make you feel good and hugs help too. List your strategies and use them regularly.

Accept life can be stressful at times

There are challenges in life that we cannot change and that we have to accept or we just remain stressed our whole lives. We cannot control other people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviours. We cannot control certain sudden life events. We cannot control world events. In fact, when you think about it, the only thing we can control is ourselves - our thoughts, our feelings and our actions. This realisation can sometimes bring a huge sense of relief. You can drop the other stuff because it is not yours to hold. Acceptance of some of the stress-inducing stuff actually helps to reduce the stress itself.

Walk away

It is not always possible, but if you can walk away, then do so. We sometimes believe we have to struggle through problems, that we are trapped and not allowed to say ‘no more’. But, we can. Each of us deserves peace of mind, love, respect, good health and to put ourselves first. What is the alternative? When you next feel stressed, remind yourself that you are important too, and decide that even if the problem is not going away, maybe you either walk away - literally or mentally.

Dr Radha Modgil is an award-winning medical doctor and GP, TV presenter and author of Know Your Power: Inspiration, Motivation and Practical Tools For Life. You can read more about her here drradha.co.uk and follow her on Instagram.

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You know your own body best during pregnancy. But knowing when something might be wrong depends on having high quality, clear information at the right time.

When pregnancy health information is clear, timely and evidence based, it helps women make informed decisions, recognise potential risks earlier, and seek care when it is needed. In turn, this can help support safer outcomes for both parent and baby.

That is the focus of a new initiative from Tommy’s, the pregnancy and baby charity, which has launched the Pregnancy Health Information Questionnaire to better understand how key pregnancy health messages are shared across the UK, and whether they are reaching people when they are most needed.

The survey will explore how pregnancy health information is accessed, how well it is understood, and whether women and birthing people feel they have received enough guidance to support a healthy pregnancy. It also aims to highlight gaps in communication, with the findings set to inform how future messaging is developed, targeted and delivered.

Tommy’s goal is to ensure that important health information is not only evidence based, but also clear, consistent and available at the right moment. By running the questionnaire regularly, the charity also hopes to track progress over time and build a stronger evidence base on what makes pregnancy information effective.

Women and birthing people who are currently pregnant or who have been pregnant in the last three years are invited to take part, including those who have experienced baby loss.

Take part in the Pregnancy Health Information Questionnaire and share your experience to help ensure everyone has the information they need, when they need it.

Participants will also be entered into a prize draw to win a £250 Mamas & Papas voucher or a shopping voucher as a thank you.

Research from Thames Valley Air Ambulance in the UK reveals one in three women who suffer a cardiac arrest receive no CPR before emergency crews arrive.

And according to St John Ambulance research, a third of adults in the UK are afraid to give CPR to a woman because they’re worried about touching her breasts. Thirty three per cent of men said they were concerned they would be accused of inappropriate touching when giving chest compressions to a woman, compared to 13% of women.

CPR training has historically only taken place on male manikins, leading to a lack of knowledge and experience of performing life saving chest compressions on women. Now, female CPR manikins are being used by charities such as Thames Valley Air Ambulance to help break the stigma and educate members of the public on how to help save women’s lives while waiting for medics to arrive.

Women are more likely to die from a cardiac arrest because their bra is not removed when a defibrillator is used to give an electric shock to the heart, which can help restore the heart's rhythm and get it beating normally again. When a defibrillator is applied within the first three minutes of cardiac arrest it can increase the chances of someone surviving a cardiac arrest by up to 70%.

Understandably, members of the public assisting someone in cardiac arrest are hesitant to remove a woman’s bra but this crucial act could save her life. Resuscitation charity Bra Off Defib On has highlighted the best way to remove a bra - cutting down the side of the fabric instead of the middle, where a wire often is - to make sure skin is exposed for defibrillation which will only work on bare skin.

To close the gender CPR gap, Thames Valley Air Ambulance is being supported by the charity’s royal patron, The Duchess of Edinburgh who got involved with a CPR session recently.

Thames Valley Air Ambulance Chief Executive Amanda McLean says: “Early CPR gives us the best possible chance of saving a life. But we know confidence rates to step in and perform CPR are low and, sadly, they appear to be even lower for women in cardiac arrest. Notions of modesty should never get in the way of saving a life. That’s why we include manikins with breasts in our CPR awareness sessions, and we show people how to cut through a bra before applying defibrillator pads.”

You can watch a video on giving CPR presented by Thames Valley Air Ambulance critical care paramedic Tracey here.

How to give CPR

For an unresponsive adult not breathing, call emergency services immediately and perform CPR - place the heel of one hand in the center of the chest (between the nipples) and the other hand on top, interlocking fingers. Kneeling, keep arms straight and use your body weight to press down 5–6cm at a rate of 100–120 beats per minute. These songs all match this rhythm so help you give lifesaving treatment while waiting for emergency services to arrive:

Shake It Off – Taylor Swift

Stayin’ Alive – Bee Gees

Espresso – Sabrina Carpenter

Girls Just Want to Have Fun – Cyndi Lauper

Flowers – Miley Cyrus

Dancing Queen – ABBA

I Will Survive – Gloria Gaynor

For decades, “baby brain” has been shorthand for something dismissive: forgetfulness, fuzziness, the brain fog and memory problems during pregnancy and postpartum. It’s a phrase often delivered with a shrug of apology by a mother or worse, a smirk from someone watching a woman struggling.

But a recent study indicates that pregnancy has a profound structural impact on brains and offers new clues into the neurological changes in mums‑to‑be.

Research over the past decade by a group of scientists in Spain and the Netherlands has been mapping those changes in unprecedented detail.

Findings in the largest research to date suggests that grey matter - the nerve-rich part of the brain involved in processing information, emotions and empathy - decreases by an average of nearly 5% during pregnancy.

And scientists working on the Be Mother project say these changes may be beneficial when it comes to caring for newborns.

The brain changes on purpose

Researchers led by Prof Susana Carmona, director of the NeuroMaternal at the laboratory at the Gregorio Marañón Health Research Institute in Madrid, and co-lead with Prof Oscar Vilarroya, scanned the brains of 127 first time pregnant women five times - before, during and after pregnancy - and compared them to scans from 52 women who had never been pregnant.

The results were consistent and striking. Grey matter decreased by nearly 5% in regions of the brain involved in self-awareness, reading others’ emotions and social perception during pregnancy, reaching the lowest point in the final weeks before birth. By six months after birth, grey matter regained volume by around 3.4%. This was seen in all women who took part in the study.

Rather than damage or loss, scientists believe this reduction in grey matter reflects a process known as “pruning”, the brain trimming away unnecessary connections to become more efficient.

“I like to use the metaphor of pruning a tree,” Professor Carmona says. “Some of the branches are cut to make it grow more efficiently.”

Rewiring for connection

The women who showed the most pronounced brain restructuring were also more likely to report stronger bonding with their babies. This suggests something powerful: pregnancy may biologically prepare the brain for connection.

One participant in the study put it plainly: “Rather than becoming dumber, we are becoming more specialised for the job.”

Pregnancy is physically and emotionally demanding. Sleep is disrupted. Energy is ebbing.

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The dominant narrative for decades reduced carrying a baby to inconvenience with mental fog, missed appointments and forgotten names. Which are all real experiences for many expectant mothers.

But these cognitive changes appear to be driven by biology itself, not just the experience of becoming a parent. The transformation seems to be closely tied to pregnancy hormones, especially oestrogen, which rise dramatically and track alongside these neurological shifts.

And the changes don’t simply disappear after birth. While some grey matter returns, traces of this transformation can remain for years, a lasting imprint of matrescence, the transition into motherhood. Other research has shown brain scans alone are able to correctly identify which women had been pregnant even six years after birth, with more than 90% accuracy, proving pregnancy leaves a lasting mark on the brain.

So perhaps the real issue with “baby brain” isn’t that it’s inaccurate but that it’s incomplete. It’s a reprioritisation for new mums to put resilience, perspective, and clarity at the forefront of mind. And pregnant women should no longer be diminished with the turn of phrase, but respected for her transformation, body and mind.

Matrescence - the physical, psychological, and emotional process of becoming a mother - is experienced by millions of women every year, but the lack of research is striking.

Now scientists are beginning to map what happens to the brain during pregnancy. It raises important questions about mental health and how these changes relate to the one in five women who experience depression around the time of birth, support systems, and what it means for health care.

Because if the brain is being reshaped during pregnancy, then the transition to motherhood deserves to be recognised for what it truly is: a major neurological event.

To mark her 43rd birthday, Lupita shared the latest on her health condition. “Over the course of my lifetime, I have carried 77 uterine fibroids: 25 surgically removed, and more than 50 still growing inside me today - the largest the size of an orange,” she said. “In this image, I’m holding 77 fruits, as a symbol for each fibroid, to make visible the weight that I, and millions of women like me, carry every day.”

“Expect to be in pain every month”

“When you have fibroids, doctors usually use fruit to explain to you what size your fibroids are. So your fibroid could be the size of a grape,” Lupita’s said. “My biggest fibroid is the size of an orange.”

“This is not a rare story. It is just a rarely told one,” she explained. “I have endured seasons of constant pain, losing dangerous amounts of blood each month, and suffering in silence.”

Before her fibroids were discovered, Lupita, regularly experienced pelvic pain and fatigue. Once her period started, she was told to “expect to be in pain every month”.

“So, when I was experiencing the heavy bleeding, it didn’t sound an alarm. The clotting was not anything remarkable to me. I didn’t understand my body. I didn’t know what was going on, and I didn’t know to be worried,” she said.

Following her 2014 Oscar win for 12 Years a Slave, Lupita was diagnosed with fibroids and had a myomectomy, surgery to remove them for the first time. Doctors extracted 30 growths.

“I asked my doctor if I could do anything to prevent them from recurring,” Lupita has explained. “She said: ‘You can’t. It’s only a matter of time until they grow again’.”

Twelve years later, they have grown again and Lupita’s debating whether to undergo the procedure again.

“So now, 12 years later, I have fibroids again,” Lupita revealed recently. “I have double the amount of fibroids and I’m still being offered the same options: surgery or living with the pain. I haven’t yet chosen the surgery. I’m not ready to make that decision. It’s quite invasive, and a lot of women just get a hysterectomy [to remove the uterus].”

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Ditching women’s health shame

In fact, fibroids are incredibly common.

“Eight out of 10 Black women and 7 out of 10 white women will experience fibroids,” Lupita says. “Yet we speak so little of them. When we reach puberty, we’re taught that periods mean pain, and that pain is simply part of being a woman. I started talking about my experience privately, and I realised so many women are going through this.”

“I felt shame,” Lupita shared recently. “What did I do to cause them? And then I felt very alone and quite scared for my reproductive health.”

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By sharing her experience, Lupita hopes to change the shame held by so many women and encourage them to seek the support and treatment they deserve.

What you need to know about uterine fibroids

Fibroids are non-cancerous growths that develop in or around the womb (uterus). The growths are made up of muscle and fibrous tissue, and vary in size. They’re sometimes known as uterine myomas or leiomyomas. They are common with 2 in 3 women developing at least one fibroid at some point in their life, most often in women aged 30 to 50.

The exact cause of fibroids is unknown, but they have been linked to the hormone oestrogen, produced by the ovaries. Fibroids usually develop during a woman’s reproductive years (16 to 50) when oestrogen levels are at their highest. They tend to shrink when oestrogen levels are low, such as after menopause.

Many women are unaware they have fibroids because they do not have any symptoms.

Around 1 in 3 women do have symptoms and may experience:

• heavy periods or painful periods

• abdominal pain

• lower back pain

• a frequent need to urinate

• constipation

• pain or discomfort during sex

In rare cases, further complications caused by fibroids can affect pregnancy or cause infertility.

Fibroids can grow anywhere in the womb and vary in size considerably, from the size of a pea to the size of a melon.

If you do have symptoms caused by fibroids, medicine to help relieve the symptoms will usually be recommended first. There are also medications available to help shrink fibroids. If these prove ineffective, surgery may be recommended.

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One in 10 women and those born with a uterus are affected by endometriosis, yet the average time to receive a diagnosis of endometriosis in the UK has now reached 9 years and 4 months - an increase from an average of 8 years in 2020.

This Endometriosis Awareness Month, new data has been released by Endometriosis UK to highlight the struggles of women seeking diagnosis and support. Shockingly, 39% of those surveyed needed to visit their GP 10 times or more before endometriosis was suspected. And sadly 55% of respondents attended A&E with their symptoms, but 46% of these were sent home without treatment.

Around 1.5 million women in the UK are currently living with endometriosis.

Endometriosis is a long-term condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows elsewhere in the body. Common symptoms include pelvic pain, painful periods that interfere with everyday life, heavy bleeding and pain during or after sex.

It’s often misunderstood as being solely a gynecological condition, but as a systemic inflammatory disease it can affect the entire body. Endometriosis has been linked to bowel and bladder dysfunction, chronic fatigue, brain fog, nerve pain, joint pain, and, in severe cases, spread to organs. It can contribute to infertility and is frequently mistaken for IBS, autoimmune disorders, or anxiety before the underlying disease is recognised.

Emma Cox, CEO of Endometriosis UK, said: “It is unacceptable that those living with endometriosis have to endure years of pain and uncertainty before receiving a diagnosis. Our findings underscore the urgent need not only for increased awareness and understanding of endometriosis and menstrual health among healthcare providers, but for this to be translated into action, with appropriate levels of resources allocated by the NHS to overcome far too long waiting lists and enable access to care where and when it’s needed. Endometriosis care has been neglected for too long and the situation is getting worse.”

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Endometriosis UK is now calling on all UK governments to commit to reducing the average time for diagnosis to one year or less by 2030. This will need targeted action to reduce waiting lists for gynaecology services, appropriate levels of funding and resources, mandatory and effective endometriosis and menstrual health training for healthcare practitioners, menstrual health education in schools and an acknowledging endometriosis as a common chronic condition that must be treated as a long term condition by the NHS.

Kirsteen Sullivan MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Endometriosis, said, “Whilst I am appalled by the shocking waiting times across the UK for women to receive a diagnosis for endometriosis, I am regrettably not surprised. For too long, women’s health issues have been sidelined, and this must change. Endometriosis can be debilitating and devastating. Anyone suffering from this condition deserves timely and compassionate diagnosis, treatment and care.”

According to a damning parliamentary report by the Women and Equalities committee published in 2024, women and girls are enduring years of pain because gynaecological conditions such as endometriosis and adenomyosis are treated with inadequate care due to a “pervasive stigma”, a lack of education by healthcare professionals and “medical misogyny”.

There is a serious investment gender gap. More money is invested in men’s health issues than women’s. Between 2019 and 2023, there were 11 erectile dysfunction (ED) startups that attracted 28 times more capital than eight endometriosis-related ventures. For context, the same number of women live with endometriosis as men experience ED. It’s also been widely reported that male pattern baldness is studied more than endometriosis.

And the new research published this month shows medical misogyny is still very much an issue for women’s health with continued lack of funding into research and understanding by medical experts.

Research published in The Lancet Obstetrics, Gynaecology & Women’s Health in 2025 showed that across the 194 WHO member states, nearly half of all countries have no national policies or clinical guidance on diagnosis or care. More than a quarter of countries lacking any publicly available clinical recommendations and only 7% have official government-endorsed clinical care guidelines. A second study found that half of all countries had no policy information available at all.

Some research that did gain attention - for all the wrong reasons - was back in 2013. The study, Attractiveness of women with rectovaginal endometriosis: a case-control study, was published by Fertility and Sterility and publicly funded by the University of Milan school of medicine. It took seven years to be retracted after being criticised by doctors for ethical concerns.

Those who suffer from debilitating diseases like endometriosis deserve better.

By Ashley Moore

Ten years ago, I was fighting for my life when an incredible stranger and his brave family saved my life by saying yes to organ donation.

I’ve lived with cystic fibrosis (CF) all my life. CF is a progressive, inherited genetic disorder that causes severe damage to the lungs, digestive system, and other organs. There is no cure. Instead, life is filled with an extensive drug regimen, breathing treatments, and airway clearance to clear thick, sticky mucous from the lungs. Life expectancy for anyone with CF is now 56 in the UK due to major advances in treatment for the condition, but when I was born in America and diagnosed in the early 1980s, my parents were told I’d be lucky to see 18.

Before my body failed me in 2015, my life had been full to bursting. I had a happy childhood growing up in Texas. I went to university in California and did a semester abroad in London, where I met my future husband, Alastair. We married on his 25th birthday in a gondola at The Venetian casino in Las Vegas, which still feels delightfully absurd and perfectly us.

After years of infertility struggles, our incredible sister-in-law, Michelle, helped us welcome our son via surrogacy in 2014. The future was looking bright as we settled into family life in London, thrilled to be a family of three.

Life was never easy, but I coped thanks to a daily cocktail of drugs, hours of airway clearance, and weeks-long hospital stays when needed. But a bout of flu devastated my lung function and health, and sent me into a downward spiral from which I could not recover. I was left bed-bound, tethered to oxygen, and unable to care for my baby. By late 2015, I had been an inpatient in hospital for 10 months. Ten months of being alive but not living. I missed moments that never come back - big ones, tiny ones - with my son, my husband, my family, my friends. For example, I had to watch my baby’s first birthday party, which I had planned, on a computer screen, while lying in a hospital bed, shivering so violently with a high fever that the bed was shaking.

I desperately wanted to live for my little family, but there were moments I wanted to die. End-stage cystic fibrosis is an exceptionally painful way to go. Every muscle in your body hurts from the constant coughing, your body is starving to death as you become too sick to eat, you are nauseated, the inside of your nose is raw and bleeding from high flow oxygen, and your body is battered and bruised from IV therapies and blood tests. You are drowning from the inside out, fighting for every excruciating breath that never fully satisfies your body’s need for air. I was terrified to die, to miss out on all the things I still wanted to see and do. I was terrified to live, not knowing how much more suffering I could bear. Teetering between life and death exhausted my soul.

By mid- October, my lungs, riddled with bacterial and fungal infections, had completely failed and were unable to oxygenate my body. I coughed up blood, and my CO2 levels spiked, causing me to black out for several days. I was in desperate need of a double lung transplant. My family rushed back from the States. They didn’t know if I was still alive when they landed. My medical team asked my husband a question: should they let me die peacefully, or place me on ECMO - a high-risk life-support machine which takes over the job of your lungs - while we waited for organs that might never come?

The answer for him was obvious - choose the option that gave me a fighting chance to live. He chose ECMO.

That decision catapulted me to the very top of the UK urgent lung transplant list. One week later, and after a night of near-catastrophically low oxygen levels, the call came. New lungs were available because of the generosity of an organ donor and his family. To make such an emotional decision while dealing with their own grief of losing a loved one is nothing short of heroic. The gift of new lungs, of life, when I was so close to death, is still hard to comprehend.

Surgery went ahead and was successful. Recovery was brutal. I was absolutely skeletal and had lost so much muscle that I had to learn to walk again. My feet and legs were horribly swollen, and they felt like they were on fire due to neuropathy. I had a terrible tremor in my hands due to my new medications. Within four months, I faced a serious, life-threatening form of rejection and a gruelling six months of treatment to stop it. But very slowly, my life returned.

And what a life it has been.

Since my transplant a decade ago, I have skied down mountains and hiked up them. I watched New Year’s Eve fireworks from a boat in Sydney Harbour. I’ve flown in a seaplane, seen elephants in the wild, fossil-hunted on the Jurassic Coast, celebrated 20 years of marriage, travelled extensively, sung badly at countless concerts and become a qualified open-water scuba diver, something that feels almost poetic after years of fighting to breathe.

But the moments I treasure most are the small ones.

Walking the dog. Cooking dinner. Watching my son grow from a toddler into a boy, then a tween, and getting to know him as a person: his kindness, his stubbornness, his joy. He is now 11, and I saw him star in the year 6 play and start secondary school as a drama scholar.

I turned 44 in January, an age I never expected to reach. That’s ten extra birthdays. Three thousand six hundred and fifty bonus days.

Last year, we celebrated the tenth anniversary of my transplant with a masquerade ball to raise money for the NHS Blood and Transplant charity. Many guests said they couldn’t think of a better reason for a party! Friends and family travelled from across the UK, the US, and even Australia, to mark the occasion and to honour my donor and his family, people who turned unimaginable loss into life. We’ve raised almost £8,700 so far, and I hope to reach £10,000 for my 10 bonus years. I’ve also been invited by the charity to join a panel to decide how funds raised will support organ donation, transplant research, and services. It’s a small way of paying gratitude forward.

But it hasn’t all been plain sailing.

I’ve faced chest infections, kidney failure, surgeries, gout, 24/7 neuropathy pain, and depression. I survived a pandemic. I’ve cancelled trips and buried far too many friends lost to CF. I carry their absence with me every single day and always will. I have felt hopeless watching a world that sometimes chooses who to hate rather than who to love.

And yet, when life feels unbearable, I remind myself of this: my chest rises and falls with ease. That simple act is proof that kindness, humanity, and love exist.

A stranger - and his family - saved my life when they said yes to organ donation. I have written to them several times to thank them for agreeing to save a life, my life.

Transplant patients are walking, talking stories of hope. We are proof of the resilience of the human spirit and the extraordinary generosity of others. Sometimes gifted to us by the people we love, sometimes by people we will never meet.

I hope I have made my donor and his family proud. I hope I have honoured both his life and his loss. I hope my journey will help others and encourage them to share their wishes regarding organ donation.

Families are nearly twice as likely to agree to organ donation if they know their loved one’s wishes beforehand, with consent rates reaching approximately 90% compared to only 47% when wishes are unknown. So please, have the conversation. Say it out loud. Write it down. Make it known.

It could save a life like mine… and that is a thing of beauty.

UK: www.organdonation.nhs.uk

USA: unos.org/transplant/

Canada: beadonor.ca/

Australia: www.donatelife.gov.au/register-donor-today

Menopause is a universal change for more than half the world’s population, yet the experience is far from equal. Black women face unique challenges: menopause often arrives earlier, lasts longer, has more severe symptoms and is met with less support from healthcare systems. Despite being a natural stage of life, menopause sits at the intersection of gender, race, health inequality and structural bias. And Black women disproportionately bear the cost.

Black women go through menopause 2 years earlier

On average, menopause occurs around the age of 49 compared with 51 in White women. This matters because later menopause is associated with protective benefits, particularly against cardiovascular disease and bone loss due to the longer presence of oestrogen.

Black women are three times more likely to experience premature menopause, before the age of 40. Symptoms such as hot flushes and night sweats are around 50% more common, tend to be more severe, worsen with age and last significantly longer, approximately ten years compared with around six and a half years in White women.

Despite this heavier symptom burden, Black women are historically less likely to receive medical treatment. Studies have shown that only 8% of Black women used hormone replacement therapy (HRT), compared with 15% of White women. Research is lacking and disparities in access, trust and treatment persist.

The hysterectomy factor

Black women are two to three times more likely to undergo hysterectomy for benign conditions such as fibroids. Menopause following hysterectomy, particularly when the ovaries are removed or affected, is often more severe. According to USA research (The Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation in 2022), African American women who experienced menopause as a result of hysterectomy reported more intense hot flushes than White women, further contributing to the severity of symptoms.

Importantly, Black women often enter midlife with a more adverse cardio-metabolic profile, including higher rates of obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and physical limitations. Cardiovascular disease is already the leading cause of death in women, and these factors compound the risks associated with the loss of oestrogen after menopause.

Why do these disparities exist?

The reasons are complex and deeply rooted.

Socioeconomic and lifestyle factors such as upbringing, employment, income, number of children, diet, exercise, smoking and alcohol use all play a role. These are shaped by broader societal inequalities that disproportionately affect Black women.

Chronic stress is a key driver. Living with the cumulative effects of racism, both systemic and interpersonal, has a measurable physiological impact. Chronic stress is linked to earlier menopause, worse symptoms and poorer overall health outcomes.

Access to healthcare is another major factor. This includes the ability to attend appointments, health literacy, feeling safe and heard in clinical settings, and having symptoms taken seriously. Many Black women report being dismissed, misdiagnosed or told they are “too young” for menopause, or that symptoms are due to anxiety or depression.

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Bias and stereotypes in healthcare sadly persist. Harmful assumptions, such as Black women having higher pain thresholds, can result in delayed diagnosis and inadequate treatment. Menopause symptoms may be minimised, normalised or overlooked entirely.

Health beliefs and stigma also play a role. Menopause is rarely spoken about openly in many Black communities, reinforcing silence, shame and lack of awareness. Common misconceptions include:

• “Menopause is something you just get on with.”

• “My mother didn’t take anything, so neither should I.”

• “Menopause is natural so medications are absolutely unnecessary.”

• “HRT is dangerous.”

• “Herbal remedies are safer and work better.”

• Misunderstandings around post-menopausal bleeding, sometimes seen as a return of fertility or a ‘final bleed’ when it can be a sign of health issues.

Finally, there is minimal research focused specifically on Black women and menopause. We do not yet fully understand the role genetics may play, largely because Black women remain under-represented in research trials.

Representation matters

When menopause narratives centre almost exclusively on White women in healthcare, research, and media, Black women are rendered invisible. Change must happen at multiple levels from education and awareness, openness within families and communities, addressing systemic and institutional racism, more representation in research and policy, and better healthcare professional training.

Practical tips for Black women seeing a GP about menopause

Before the appointment

• If possible, book with a female clinician if that feels more comfortable.

• Consider requesting a double appointment so you don’t feel rushed.

• Keep a symptom diary: what you’re experiencing, when it started, how it’s changed and how it affects your life.

• Ask about family history if you’re able to as early menopause can run in families.

During the appointment

• Bring someone with you for support if helpful.

• Clearly explain your symptoms, concerns and what you think might be happening.

• Discuss your expectations for treatment and next steps.

• Ask questions and seek clarity, you deserve to understand your options.

• Advocate for yourself if you feel dismissed. Make notes if useful.

• Request reputable, evidence-based resources.

After the appointment

• Reflect on how the consultation went and whether you feel informed.

• Review the information provided.

• If you didn’t feel heard or supported, you are entitled to seek a second opinion. Do not suffer in silence.

Menopause must not be seen as just a ‘trivial inconvenience’, nor is it something Black women should simply endure as it can be quite severe and disruptive for many women. It is a significant life transition which can have profound physical, emotional and long-term health implications. Addressing menopause disparities requires listening to Black women, believing Black women and centering their experiences in healthcare, research and policy so everyone can be represented and supported.

Take The Female Lead’s Menopause Journey survey and share your experience to help women in the future: thefemalelead.typeform.com/menopause

When Michelle Heaton talks about her experience of menopause, there’s no sugar-coating, no euphemisms and no shame. Unlike most women, Michelle’s menopause in her thirties was immediate, surgical, and life-changing. What followed was years of isolation, addiction and eventually recovery. Now Michelle, TV presenter, author and singer in UK band Liberty X, is using her voice to ensure other women don’t feel as alone as she once did.

“I didn’t wake up different, it crept up on me”

Michelle went through menopause in 2015 aged 34 after undergoing a full hysterectomy and oophorectomy due to carrying the BRCA gene, which gave her an 85% chance of getting breast cancer and a 40% chance of getting ovarian cancer. It was just six months after having her youngest child, AJ, and followed a double mastectomy in 2012 to prevent breast cancer.

“I knew that I was going to be in menopause straight after surgery but you don’t know much about it at that age. My main concern was eradicating the chance of having cancer, which both my grandma and her mum had in their 30s. I think people assume you wake up the next day and everything feels different. I didn’t. It crept up on me slowly. That’s the dangerous part,” she tells The Female Lead. “It doesn’t just slap you, it slowly grazes. Then all of a sudden gives you a punch and you’re like, ‘What the hell is happening?’”

Because Michelle was given an oestrogen implant during surgery, the hormonal crash wasn’t instant, but it was profound.

“My body had been used to a full range of hormones, and suddenly it had a fraction of that,” she says. “Even with HRT, I still had every menopause symptom you can imagine. I lost my libido, my confidence, my spark and my will for life. I didn’t recognise myself anymore.”

Michelle, now 46, has been open about her sobriety since going into rehab in 2021 for alcohol addiction, but what’s often missing from the conversation is how her experience of menopause played a role.

“There’s no denying that going through menopause in this way started off my bad relationship with alcohol. It became my escapism. When I drank, I felt like me again, just for a few hours,” she says. “Having every womanly part taken away messes with your head. Even if you’ve had children, losing the choice is huge.”

Michelle explains that her friends weren’t going through menopause yet, which made her feel deeply isolated, “How many times can you say you’re tired, dry, itchy, irritated, and don’t want sex with your husband? I didn’t want to keep bringing it up. Drinking helped me relate to people again.”

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What she didn’t know at the time was that alcohol can reduce the effectiveness of HRT, leaving her stuck in a vicious cycle, “I was taking hormones and drinking myself stupid, basically cancelling out any benefit.”

Michelle is now nearly five years sober. “If I drank again, I know exactly where I’d end up. It nearly killed me,” she says.

Menopause didn’t just affect Michelle physically, it seriously affected her marriage.

“I was horrible, honestly. And my husband Hugh was helpless. He didn’t know how to help me,” she explains. She understands why so many relationships break down during menopause. “When someone isolates themselves and becomes a different person, their partner is left watching, unable to fix it.” Thankfully, the couple worked through Michelle’s addiction together and are still happily married after 15 years.

Menopause doesn’t mean the end

After countless blood tests and appointments, Michelle was eventually prescribed testosterone alongside her HRT implant, something still surrounded by myths when it comes to women.

“Testosterone changed my life. I went from feeling maybe 20% myself to about 70%,” she says. But she’s blunt about her struggle with NHS support. “You have to fight for testosterone. And most women can’t afford to. I pay privately and it’s expensive. Women think testosterone means growing a beard or a deep voice. That’s nonsense. We’ve always had testosterone as a natural hormone, we just lose it in menopause.”

Michelle rejects the idea that menopause is the end of living a great, fulfilling life.

“It’s not a full stop. It’s a pause. You’re never the same again, but that doesn’t mean you’re less. You can be just as brilliant,” she says.

Today, Michelle is healthier than she’s been in years and is planning major physical challenges, including climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania for charity in 2026, saying. “Going through menopause - whether it’s in your thirties, forties or fifties - doesn’t define you.”

Michelle now speaks regularly about menopause in businesses, often alongside her husband Hugh. Both women and men attend. They listen to the couple share their experiences. “That’s how change happens, when people realise they’re not alone,” she says. “Half the population goes through menopause. The other half knows someone who is.”

If there’s one myth Michelle wants to debunk, it’s this: “That menopause means you’re done. You’re not. You’re just beginning something different.”

Michelle’s advice to women facing medical menopause

Make a plan before it happens: “Ask about HRT early, and know your options. Menopause symptoms are quite easily written off as depression. Keep talking to your doctor in the months and years after surgery to get the support you need.”

Build a support network: “Don’t feel defeated by asking for help. Keeping everything in only leads to more destruction. You’re not alone.”

Don’t feel guilty: “Because I’d chosen to have surgery I felt like I wasn’t allowed to feel sad about it. Even if your menopause is induced because you’ve elected to have life-saving surgery, you’re to feel all the emotions.”

Take The Female Lead’s Menopause Journey survey and share your experience to help women in the future: thefemalelead.typeform.com/menopause

Michelle’s book, Hot Flush: Motherhood, the Menopause and Me, is available to buy.

You can read more about her DSNY Kilimanjaro Summit Climb for Caudwell Children and Caudwell Youth here.

By Caroline Millington

Menopause wasn’t supposed to arrive at 40. But in my late thirties, my body quietly began telling a different story and to be honest, like so many women in perimenopause, I didn’t have a clue what was going on.

In September 2018, I missed a period. They’d always been regular and there was no possibility that I was pregnant. It was the first time I’d considered I could be in early menopause at 40. But not the first sign. Here’s what I wish I’d known…

You’re not going mad - it’s perimenopause!

I sent a text to a friend on 19 September: Missed a period - literally slight spotting one day last month (August). Nothing since. Early menopause is a possibility. Would explain low mood & oversleeping some days. Wake up boiling hot... It might not be but... 😢

I’d struggled for a few years in my late thirties feeling discombobulated, in a way that’s hard to describe but slipping into a similar depression I’d experienced in my early twenties: agitated and frustrated at work, cancelling on friends because of social anxiety, and just not feeling myself. Instead of going to the GP, I went to therapy for four years. It certainly helped but there was still a feeling things weren’t right. When I was 40, I started missing periods.

What followed wasn’t just the absence of periods, but a cascade of feelings I didn’t have language for. I felt low. Overwhelmingly tired. I could oversleep for hours and still be exhausted. I’d wake up hot and sweaty for the first time in my life.

It felt dramatic. I was only 40. Still hopeful that having kids was on the cards. And when you’re used to being “fine”, you learn to doubt your own instincts.

Start the conversation with your doctor early

I wish I’d gone to the doctors when I started showing symptoms of perimenopause but 10 years ago, menopause wasn’t talked about as much, and certainly not in my friend group of 30/40 somethings. I did eventually go to the GP. My hormone blood tests came back “normal” according to the phone call I got about the results. But I’d now missed two periods. The explanation offered was stress. Meanwhile, I felt like I was experiencing a year’s worth of PMT all at once, crying constantly, overwhelmed. I’d lost the version of myself I recognised.

But I kept going. Because that’s what women do.

Another text to a friend on 2 October: All blood tests came back normal. Missed 2 periods. So stress? And feel like I have a year’s PMT flooding... crying a lot! I mean 🙄 I think just overwhelmed and I’m so used to being ‘fine’.

Advocate for yourself

Going back to the doctors, I saw a male GP and he told me something very different: the earlier blood tests hadn’t been normal. My hormone levels were described as those of “a pre-pubescent girl or a woman over 60”. He certainly had a great bedside manner in breaking the news.

That sentence changed everything.

When I finally saw a senior gynaecologist in mid-November, she suspected reduced ovarian reserve. Another blood test was needed, but only during a period. That period didn’t come. HRT was mentioned as a future possibility, but nothing happened. I learned that hormone tests can only take place on days 2 and 3 of your period. So if it starts on a Friday and clinics are shut over the weekend, you have to wait until your next one. Which can be months away.

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And so began the pattern that would define the next four years: missing periods, inconclusive blood tests - sometimes showing ‘normal’ hormone levels - scans showing “possible cysts”, and reassurance that everything was normal, despite my lived experience telling me otherwise.

Research, research, research

Over the next few years, my periods appeared sporadically, each one raising hope that maybe this wasn’t menopause after all. But the symptoms persisted. And the support from doctors was lacking. By 2020, I was still missing periods for months on end and waiting for a “menopause catch-up” appointment at hospital.

A text to a friend: Hospital tomorrow for menopause catch up. Missing periods again & other symptoms 🙄

Then came COVID.

By this point, I had gone nearly 11 months without a period, a clear sign I was about to be postmenopausal according to all the research I was trying to do. Lockdown slowed any chance of pushing for a diagnosis. My last period was in April 2020 when I was 42 and then nothing. I moved house in December 2021. New area. New consultant. New chance to finally be heard.

Don’t give up

In 2022, after more scans and blood work, menopause was finally confirmed, four years after my first missed period. I was told plainly that I was in early menopause, when you stop having periods before the age of 45. I had no idea 10% of women go through early menopause, around 1 in 10!

Relief came first. Validation. I wasn’t going mad. My body had been changing, earlier than most women, all along. And it wasn’t my fault.

I texted a friend: Finally told I am in early menopause & offered HRT. Only took 4 years. Am going to discuss with GP. But need to shake up my health now 💪

Then came frustration. Why did it take four years? How much confusion, self-doubt - and money spent on therapy! - could have been avoided if someone had clearly told me I was in perimenopause and offered me HRT?

Life after early menopause

Early menopause isn’t just about periods stopping. It’s about low mood, weight gain, lack of energy, a drought of sleep, loss of identity, and feeling unheard in a system that too often relies on snapshots of “normal” blood results rather than the full picture of a woman’s life.

Four years on - and finally on HRT - the brain fog persists. But I’m grateful for my body and take care of it now. More sleep (pillow spray and brown noise help), cutting back on alcohol, losing weight and taking supplements all contribute to better health postmenopause. Knowing you can buy a HRT prescription prepayment certificate (HRT PPC) - £19.80 for 12 months - which keeps the cost of HRT down was information that immediately went into my Whatsapp groups as my friends are beginning to catch up with me on their menopause journeys.

My advice to anyone who suspects they are in perimenopause, whether in your thirties like I was, forties or fifties, is simple: trust your instincts about your own body, advocate for yourself, read up on the menopause (The Female Lead has many informative articles) and talk about it without embarrassment. We owe it to future generations of women to empower them with knowledge, dispel the myths and make menopause easier to navigate.

By Dr Naomi Potter, Menopause specialist and award-winning author

Perimenopause often begins long before you have your final period, and for many women it can start in their mid- to late thirties. Because the symptoms can feel subtle or easy to dismiss, many women spend years thinking something is wrong with them rather than recognising it as a hormonal transition. Perimenopause isn’t a problem to fix, but understanding the early signs can make the experience far less confusing and far more manageable.

Here are seven signs of perimenopause to keep an eye out for in your thirties…

1. Anxiety creeping in

Many women describe a new or unfamiliar sense of anxiety during perimenopause. This is driven by fluctuating oestrogen, which affects brain chemicals like serotonin and GABA. You might feel suddenly more on edge, overwhelmed by things you used to cope with well or experience a racing heart or sense of dread for no clear reason. This can be one of the earliest and most overlooked signs.

2. Periods changing

Changes in your menstrual cycle are one of the most common early signs of perimenopause. Your periods might become heavier, lighter, more irregular, closer together or further apart. You may also notice more clotting or longer-lasting bleeding. These changes reflect unpredictable ovulation and fluctuating hormone levels, and they can happen years before your periods stop completely. Periods getting heavier should be investigated, so please speak to your doctor if this is happening to you.

3. Worse PMS

If your premenstrual symptoms suddenly feel more intense, longer-lasting or harder to manage, perimenopause could be the reason. Breast tenderness, bloating, irritability, low mood and fatigue can all worsen as progesterone levels drop and oestrogen fluctuates. Many women feel like their emotions and body reactions are more extreme in the lead up to their period.

4. Word-finding difficulty

That frustrating moment when the word is on the tip of your tongue becomes much more common in perimenopause. Hormonal shifts affect brain function, memory and concentration. You might feel foggy, forget appointments or struggle to find simple words in conversations. This can be unsettling, but it’s a recognised hormonal symptom that can be alleviated with treatment.

5. Libido disappearing

A drop in sexual desire is a very common but rarely discussed sign. Lower oestrogen and testosterone levels can reduce natural lubrication, make sex feel uncomfortable and dampen sex drive. This isn’t a reflection of your relationship or attraction but rather a biological change. And, yes, support is absolutely available.

6. Aching muscles and joints

Unexplained joint stiffness, aching muscles and slower recovery after exercise are classic perimenopause symptoms. Oestrogen has anti-inflammatory effects, so when levels fluctuate or decline, the body can feel more stiff, sore and inflamed. Many women notice morning stiffness, sore shoulders, hips or knees or more frequent injuries.

7. Weight gain

Many women find that weight begins to creep up during perimenopause, even when their diet and activity levels haven’t changed. Hormonal changes affect how your body stores fat, often moving it towards the abdomen. Metabolism can slow, and insulin sensitivity may change, making weight management more challenging and often more frustrating.

If you recognise these symptoms in yourself, it’s always worth seeking advice from a menopause doctor. You don’t have to just deal with symptoms that affect your sleep, work, relationships or confidence. Support and effective treatment options are available, and early intervention can make a real difference to your quality of life.

Dr Naomi Potter founded the UK’s leading menopause clinic - www.menopausecare.co.uk - and hosts Is It Hot In Here? Midlife Podcast for women navigating perimenopause, menopause, and midlife health.

Take The Female Lead’s Menopause Journey Survey here - we’re giving women the platform to share your personal experiences at every stage of menopause. The goal: to build a world where everyone going through menopause receives the understanding, support, and dignity they deserve.

Meeting Julia Bradbury is a memorable experience. She’s a whirlwind of positivity, ebullience and charm. The TV presenter and author exudes good health and seems to glow from within. But, she explains, her zest has come by completely overhauling her life in the wake of a breast cancer diagnosis in 2021 at the age of 50, when her twin girls were just six and her son was nine.

“I’ve spoken to lots of cancer patients, cancer survivors and, sadly, those who have since passed away from cancer and it’s universal for everyone: when you’re told ‘You have cancer’ it’s shocking and terrifying. Even though the statistics suggest one in two of us will have a cancer diagnosis in our lifetimes, you just don’t think it’s going to be you,” she says. “The cancer club hadn’t been one I thought I was going to be joining.”

Until her breast cancer diagnosis, Julia says she took her health for granted. She did regular yoga and walking and was lucky to be naturally slim, so she ate and drank what she wanted. She confesses to loving pastries and biscuits and, when it came to after-work drinks or events, she was often the last to leave the party.

“Ahead of my mastectomy to remove the cancer, I remember having a conversation with my partner and saying to him, ‘I’m going to do everything I can to get through this and help this process.’ And I started reading books and researching how to get myself in the best possible shape ahead of the operation,” she explains. “It was like a switch went off in my brain and I realised there were tweaks I could make to support my body.”

Since recovering and the TV documentary Julia made about her experience of breast cancer, a lot of people have contacted her on social media to ask questions about their own health. “I’m not a medical expert but I can share what I’m discovering, so over the past two years I’ve made myself what I call a ‘crash test mummy’ – trialling the world’s most cutting-edge health tests, working with experts and trying lifestyle changes that promise to extend healthspan – which means living in robust health for longer,” she says.

Julia’s tests resulted in a couple of big surprises, she reveals. The first was discovering that she has a cyst in the pineal gland in the centre of her brain the shape and size of a lozenge sweet. “But my neurosurgeon Kevin O’Neill suspects I was born with this and will monitor it for tiny changes,” she says. “I’m now taking the best care of my brain by prioritising sleep and exercise and taking Omega 3 and vitamin D supplements, limiting caffeine, and eating blueberries.”

Meanwhile, she also had a massive wake-up call regarding her stress levels. “One of the doctors I spoke to in America told me the amount of cortisol in my body was at a level like I was ‘being chased by a tiger all day, every day’. That means I’m now prioritising switching off and relaxing.”

During Julia’s investigations, she discovered many easy everyday things all women can do to make a positive difference to our health. Here are seven of her favourites she’s keen we all consider…

Take what’s on offer! Many women’s health tests are available free on the NHS, including: cervical smear screening; mammogram; bowel cancer screening for those aged 50-74; overall health check for those aged 40-74. Sexual health screening is free at sexual health clinics, and blood tests can be organised at GP surgeries for any specific concerns. “Don’t put off going for your appointment – in the case of anything being wrong, early diagnosis is critical,” says Julia.

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Prioritise sleep. “Our sleep-wake cycle is critical to our physical and mental wellbeing. Like many of us, I sometimes struggle to nod off or wake up in the small hours. But I never consciously sabotage my sleep in the way I used to before my cancer diagnosis, with an overnight drive, last-minute work deadline or disastrously late meals out. I was careless with my sleep before cancer, and I suspect it might have made me more vulnerable to disease,” Julia says.

Create calm. Julia found studies that suggest an average person living today processes as much as 74 gigabytes of information every 24 hours via television, computers, smartphones, tablets and other gadgets. To put that in context, 500 years ago, a highly educated person would have consumed just 74 gigabytes of information in their entire lifetime through books and storytelling. To counter this, it’s essential to find ways to introduce calm into our lives. “I now put aside 10 to 15 minutes every night and lie down, legs up against the wall to help ease anxiety and the pressure of the day and do a guided meditation or ‘go within’, as guru Deepak Chopra teaches. At the very least I’m creating ‘quiet’ rather than watching TV, because I know it will aid sleep, improve my mental health and help me to be still,” she says.

Nature watch. Experts at the European Centre for Environment and Human Health (ECEHH) at Exeter University did an experiment with Julia and her sister that showed the difference getting outside and simply looking at the landscape can make to concentration and focus. “We were given a series of the same online cognitive tests – twice. The only difference being that before the second time, I went out for a walk on the windy Gylly Beach coastal path looking at the seascape, while Gina had a coffee and checked her emails. They found that for the second test my reaction times were 20 per cent faster and Gina’s were 14 per cent slower. The science shows taking what I call ‘nature snacks’ makes you significantly more productive and accurate.”

Fill up on hero foods. “I used to grab a sandwich and bag of crisps for lunch on the run but what we eat can be one of the most important things we do to build healthspan,” Julia says. “Dr Kara Fitzgerald, who runs the New Frontiers Clinic in Connecticut and has written multiple papers on longevity, has created the dynamic dozen foods that we should all be eating to improve our quality of life for longer: turmeric, green tea, beetroot, shiitake mushrooms, eggs, blueberries, seeds, rosemary, organic liver, cruciferous vegetables, spinach and salmon.”

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Control alcohol. “Alcohol is a poison and there are no health benefits to it. The discussion about red wine having healthy polyphenols and resveratrol turns out to be nonsense – you’d have to drink gallons of it to get the polyphenols, so the amount of alcohol would negate any benefits,” says Julia. She found giving up booze a simple choice after her breast cancer diagnosis as Professor Gareth Evans, consultant clinical geneticist from Manchester Centre for Genomic Medicine, told her if she continued to drink even a moderate level of alcohol, her risk of breast cancer recurrence would be 28 per cent higher. “Even if the sober life isn’t for you, it’s worth making a note of how much you’re drinking and thinking about why you reach for that drink. Is it just for social lubrication, or is it self-medication? Can you replace at least some of those glasses of alcohol with something else?”

Add strength training. Being strong and flexible is critical to ensuring we’re healthy as we age. Julia says that she doesn’t count walking, stretching and ‘rebounding’ on her trampoline as part of her exercise regime as “they are simply essential to keep the Bradbury wheels oiled.” She has now installed a pull-up bar across her son’s bedroom doorway for the whole family to hang off to help with back stretching and improve grip strength. “I also never miss the chance to strengthen my legs, climbing the stairs two at a time; power walking up a hill; doing squats, lunges or a wall sit (slide down a wall into a seated position and stay there until your thighs are on fire). Remember to squat, crouch and sit on the floor - anything to get your legs past 90 degrees - as often as possible.”

Hack Yourself Healthy by Julia Bradbury, Piatkus £20, is out now

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Women in the UK living with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) are facing long delays in diagnosis, inconsistent treatment, and a lack of support from healthcare providers, according to a new parliamentary report.

The condition, which affects around one in eight women of childbearing age, is often dismissed or treated narrowly as a fertility issue, despite its wide-ranging impact on physical and mental health.

Years of Waiting for Answers

The inquiry, published by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on PCOS, reveals stark statistics: more than a third of women waited over four years to receive a diagnosis. Even after being diagnosed, almost two in five (38%) said they were given no resources or guidance to help them manage the condition.

PCOS symptoms can include irregular periods, hormonal imbalances leading to excess facial or body hair, polycystic ovaries, and long-term risks such as insulin resistance and cardiovascular complications.

Despite this, only 3% of patients reported feeling supported by their healthcare providers. Alarmingly, nearly a third (28%) felt dismissed or not taken seriously.

“Sidelined in Policy, Overlooked in Funding”

Michelle Welsh, Labour MP for Sherwood Forest and chair of the APPG, warned that PCOS is emblematic of wider systemic issues.

“PCOS affects one in eight women and those assigned female at birth, yet for too long it has been sidelined in policy, overlooked in funding, and misunderstood in practice,” says Welsh. “This report sets out a clear and urgent case for reform. If we are serious about improving women’s health, we must act now to break the cycle.”

Inequalities in Care

The report also highlighted striking inequalities. Women from Black and Asian backgrounds are up to 2.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with PCOS. Many also present with more severe symptoms such as insulin resistance, raising questions about whether bias and systemic inequality play a role in how their conditions are managed.

Dr Itunu Johnson-Sogbetun, GP and founder of the Royal College of GPs’ Women’s Health Special Interest Group, said the findings reflect what many already know from lived experience.

“Care is fragmented, diagnosis is delayed, and long-term risks are too often ignored. PCOS is a multisystem condition, yet the NHS frequently treats it narrowly as a fertility or gynaecological issue,” notes Johnson-Sogbetun.

She added that the absence of national care pathways, coupled with a lack of NICE guidance for primary care, has created a “postcode lottery” for women with PCOS, leaving their access to treatment dependent on geography and individual clinicians’ judgement.

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“A Barometer for How We Value Women’s Health”

For campaigners, the inquiry is not just about PCOS, it’s a mirror held up to the state of women’s health in the UK.

Rachel Morman, chair of the PCOS charity Verity, described the report as a wake-up call.

“While this inquiry is about PCOS, it really is a barometer for how we value and prioritise women’s health across the entire system,” she says. “For a condition affecting millions across the UK, with a significant cost burden to the NHS when not managed proactively, this level of neglect is unacceptable.”

Government Response

The Department of Health and Social Care acknowledged the failures, pointing to ongoing efforts under the Women’s Health Strategy, including millions of extra appointments, tackling gynaecology waiting lists, and updating guidance on PCOS treatment.

But for the millions of women living with PCOS, the report is a reminder of how far there is still to go. Recognition, resources, and reform are urgently needed—not just for PCOS, but for women’s health as a whole.

For more information on PCOS visit the NHS website and for support head to www.verity-pcos.org.uk.

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By Clio Wood, co-founder of CensHERship

85% of UK women have felt dismissed by a healthcare professional in their lives, according to the government’s own data.  

So when that happens, where do you turn? Likely to other sources of advice, like search engines and social media. You’d expect information to be freely available there, right?

Wrong.

I’m a co-founder of CensHERship, and a women's health advocate. My social media content is supportive and signposts to medically-accurate resources. I’m not out to sell you snake-oil solutions.

But on social media, I have experienced censorship and restriction of benign and supportive health posts for women, sometimes with no explanation.

Take Ally Hensley and Ella Mae. Two women with the incredibly rare disease of Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser Syndrome (MRKH) in which you are born without a vagina. Both women create supportive content and communities via their Instagram accounts, but both have posts regularly removed or restricted.

Medical educator Dr Aziza Sesay has resorted to using a knitted vulva model in her content highlighting gynaecological conditions, including cancer, in order to be able to accurately describe symptoms. 

These are just several examples of the poor algorithmic and moderation systems designed to stifle, rather than protect, medically-accurate women's health content - because I'm not alone.

We recently launched CensHERship's flagship white paper, Censorship Revealed.  Our report outlines the problem of digital suppression of women's health content, particularly across social media platforms, highlighting the fact that 95% of women’s health creators have experienced social media censorship on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and other platforms. 

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Medical information about topics like menstruation, menopause, fertility and postpartum care are restricted for being sexual or explicit.

Equally shocking is the news that 53% of respondents now self-censor, either avoiding women's health as a topic, or severely restricting the way they talk about it.  

Both of which mean that women aren’t being allowed to own the conversation around their own health and bodies. This is critical if we want to close the widening gender health gap and end the tyranny of painful years-long diagnoses (endometriosis has an average diagnosis time of 8 years in the UK). 

Censorship leads to shame and ignorance about women's health issues like vaginal lubrication and gynaecological cancer, leading to significant ramifications for the way in which we view and treat them.

We're used to seeing emojis or 'v*gina' in place of real words, or bleeped-out rather than spoken; we consider it normal - it isn't

In the business space, female-founded condom and lube brand, Hanx, has around 30% of their digital ads rejected. Whilst adverts for men's erectile dysfunction pills are freely available.

Why is it ok for imagery of women’s bodies to be allowed when framed under the male gaze, but not via a women’s health lens?

When censorship ultimately impacts your health, this isn’t something we’ll shut up about.

Follow CensHERship’s work at censhership.co.uk and log your own experiences at our survey.

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Singer and TV presenter Myleene Klass has shared her experience of baby loss and pointed out a fact that’s prompted a powerful response on social media.

Speaking on the We Need To Talk podcast, Klass said she’d found comfort in the fact that cells from a foetus can remain in a mother’s body for years, even decades after a miscarriage. 

“If you have miscarried a baby, that baby’s cells are still in your body… they’re still there,” Klass said. “That never leaves you.”

Klass was referencing a scientific phenomenon called foetal microchimerism, where low levels of cells pass through the placenta from the foetus into the mother’s bloodstream. Some stay – embedding in her organs, bloodstream, and even brain. 

Researchers have found these cells decades later, and they appear to play a role in tissue repair, immune function, and long-term health. Some scientists call it “a cellular legacy” – a genetic trace that remains, even if the pregnancy doesn’t continue.

For Klass, who’s experienced four miscarriages and campaigned to break the silence around baby loss, it’s been a comfort. “The most unforgiving part of miscarriage is that when you lose a child there’s nothing, you don’t have photos, you don’t have memories, you have ‘what ifs’,” Klass said, explaining that parents can be left feeling they have little to mark their child loss, wondering things like: “Oh, they’d be starting school now. I wonder if they’d have your eyes.”

“But microchimerism really did give me something, and I know it’s helped a lot of mothers that I’ve spoken to about it.”

Microchimeric cells from a pregnancy can also be passed on to subsequent siblings, because cells from a mother also travel the other way, from a woman to a foetus.

Klass had a son in 2019 after multiple miscarriages, and calls him a ‘rainbow baby’, a term used for a child born after pregnancy loss.“The real magic? My little rainbow baby. He carries all of us,” she said, explaining that her son could have cells from her two daughters, as well as “the four babies that went before him” who were miscarried.

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A clip from the interview shared on TikTok has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times – and the comments show just how deeply it’s touching people. 

One reply said, “I did not know this. Now sitting here in bits because that means she's still with me 💖”  while another said, “About to go through my 8th miscarriage. It brings comfort knowing my babies are all still with me 💔.”

Another shared, “We had a rainbow baby. She was already special but knowing she has the cells of the ones we miscarried just makes her even more special.”

Whilst this science doesn’t fix the grief, it helps offer a new perspective on loss. And for many, like Klass, it’s an anchor: “I just think that’s so beautiful. That there’s a part of you that never leaves me.”

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Actress Lupita Nyong’o has shared that she was diagnosed with uterine fibroids in 2014 and is pushing for more awareness of the experience after feeling “dismissed” and alone.

The Oscar winner said she’d had surgery to remove 30 fibroids, which are non-cancerous growths in or around the womb that affect up to 80% of women during their lives.

They can cause debilitating effects, though many women have no symptoms. Nyong’o was dismayed to be told after her surgery that it was “only a matter of time until they grow again”.

In a post on Instagram on Tuesday, she said: “I’m speaking up about uterine fibroids. This is my story… I hope my experience will resonate with anyone else who has ever felt dismissed, confused or alone.

“I hope to seek answers for the far too many women dealing with uterine fibroids”.

Nyong’o said she’d decided to speak out because from puberty, girls are told that “pain is simply part of being a woman”.

“We need to stop treating this massive issue like a series of unfortunate coincidences… We must reject the normalisation of female pain”.

She said she was launching a fibroids research grant with the Foundation for Women’s Health and had met with US senators and representatives to introduce a package of uterine fibroid bills into Congress, to “expand research funding, increase early detection and interventions” and study the causes of uterine cancer, and increase public awareness”.

What are uterine fibroids?

Fibroids are non-cancerous growths that develop in or around your womb, made of muscle and fibrous tissue, according to the UK’s National Health Service (NHS).

They can vary from the size of a pea to the size of a melon. The most common type are called intramural fibroids and develop in the muscle wall of the womb.

What are the signs of uterine fibroids?

Around two thirds of women who have fibroids do not have any symptoms.

If fibroids aren’t causing you any pain, the NHS says they don’t need to be treated and sometimes shrink on their own.

For those who have symptoms, these can include painful or heavy periods, abdominal or lower back pain, needing to urinate a lot, constipation and pain during sex.

Complications caused by fibroids can affect pregnancy or cause infertility, but this is rare.

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Who gets uterine fibroids?

Fibroids are common, affecting around two thirds of women during their lifetime, according to the NHS. Women aged between 30 and 50 are the most likely to get fibroids and they are also thought to be more common in black women and women with obesity.

What are the treatments for uterine fibroids?

If they aren’t causing symptoms, the NHS says fibroids don’t need to be treated.

Speak to your doctor in your country if you think you have fibroids or are experiencing pain. In the UK, medicine to help relieve the symptoms is usually recommended first, following by medication to shrink the fibroids. If this still doesn’t work, surgery and other treatments can be considered.

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Update: this story was published before politicians voted to decriminalise abortion in England and Wales.

By Heidi Stewart, CEO of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS)

When Sammy went into premature labour at around 28 weeks at her home in England, she called for an ambulance, expecting healthcare professionals to come to the aid of her and her tiny baby. He weighed just 1lb 5oz, and he was turning blue. As Sammy desperately tried to deliver CPR to her son, it wasn’t just the paramedics who arrived, but also the police.

It was 2023, and Sammy was being investigated for attempting to illegally end her pregnancy. She had disclosed on the call that when she first discovered she was pregnant, she went to an abortion clinic but was scanned at beyond the 24 weeks limit. After this, she said she was “all over the place” and considered buying abortion medication online, but changed her mind. As a result, she was now being viewed as a potential criminal, rather than as a mother in a medical crisis.

After being admitted to hospital, blood samples were taken, and her home sealed off as a crime scene. She remained under police investigation for a year, unable to visit her baby without supervision for that entire time. It is hard to believe that this could happen in this country – but Sammy sadly is not alone.

When I heard Sammy’s story, I was devastated. Over recent years, we have witnessed a rise in the number of women facing criminal investigation and prosecution under suspicion of trying to illegally end their own pregnancies - around 60 since 2018 according to some reports, compared to virtually none before this. And these are often vulnerable, distressed women who deserve compassion, not criminalising.

You may have had no idea that abortion - or even trying to have an abortion - in parts of the UK can be illegal. Under a law passed in 1861, any woman in England and Wales who ends or attempts to end their own pregnancy at any point in gestation, without the approval of two doctors, is committing a crime that carries a sentence of up to life imprisonment.

In December 2024, the police were issued with new guidance from National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) that includes advice on searching a woman’s phone for menstrual tracking apps in the event of an “unexplained pregnancy loss.”

The charity I lead, BPAS, provides safe, legal, NHS-funded abortion care to more than 100,000 women a year, the vast majority of whom would have absolutely no idea that this criminal law - which has been called ‘Victorian’ - remains in place.

Sammy joined us in March to deliver a petition of over 100,000 signatures to the UK Prime Minister, calling for the decriminalisation of women. We believe that a growing awareness of the fact that women can now legally end a pregnancy using medication at home before 10 weeks of gestation, rather than having to have a surgical procedure, means that women are being treated with greater suspicion.

On Tuesday, MPs will have the chance to vote on an amendment which would end this by finally decriminalising abortion in England and Wales. Amendment NC1, tabled by the Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, would revoke the specific criminal sanction pertaining to a woman who ends her own pregnancy.

This would be a monumental change in our abortion law, the first truly progressive piece of abortion reform since the 1967 Abortion Act was passed, and would bring this country in line with others including Canada, Australia, and France, where women are already decriminalised.

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This cannot wait. We know that there are women in this country who remain under police investigation, and there is also a real risk that women will not seek medical care when needed because they fear that their pregnancy loss could result in criminalisation. This could place not only women’s health and also their lives at risk.

Will we, as a country, decide that women like Sammy deserve compassion, not criminalisation, or will we follow the dangerous trajectory towards greater restrictions that we are seeing in countries like the US? The decision rests in the hands of our elected representatives. It is now up to us to make our voices heard.

Visit the BPAS Time To Act campaign site to learn more, and if you are in the UK, email your MP ahead of the vote tomorrow.

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By Emma Thomas, coach and founder of Managing the Menopause

Have you ever thought one or more of the following things, or said it to a partner or friend?

“I used to be able to cope with juggling a million things, what’s wrong all of a sudden?”

“Yesterday I completely missed an important phone call, and today I couldn’t find my car keys. I ended up finding them still in the car ignition. Could I have early-onset dementia?”

“I swear my right hip suddenly hurts every morning when I wake up. Do I have arthritis?”

“My confidence at work has plummeted to zero, there’s no way I could apply for that promotion.”

“I just don’t feel like myself any more.”

If so, then you may be experiencing some of the ‘silent symptoms’ of perimenopause, and you’re not alone.

Perimenopause is the time when a woman’s body starts to transition to menopause, and can start anytime from your mid 30s. We have all heard about hot flushes or flashes, a missing libido and mood swings that travel from zero to ballistic in a nanosecond.

But many more perimenopause symptoms are harder to pinpoint, and thus fly under-the-radar for many of us, perhaps until later when those well-known symptoms make themselves known.

Here’s what to know to work out if you are experiencing it:

1. ‘NFLM’

Perhaps one of the most nebulous symptoms is ‘not feeling like myself’ anymore – in fact, it’s so common that there has been research published describing it with the acronym NFLM. It might include anxiety in individuals that have not previously struggled with it, or low mood, lower levels of confidence, or a general feeling of “bleugh” (the technical term for this is ‘anhedonia’ – see this podcast episode for more details of why our hormones create this nosedive in joy levels, and what we can do about it).

This can be extremely difficult to quantify, and as a result, when women seek help from their healthcare provider, they are often prescribed antidepressants. Whilst there is a place for antidepressant use and many find them helpful; low mood, depression and anxiety caused by hormone changes usually respond better to hormone therapy, so it's important to discuss all the options with your healthcare provider.

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2. Lower resilience to stress

The hormonal rollercoaster of perimenopause impacts our levels of cortisol, serotonin and dopamine – playing havoc with things like our ability to plan and focus, our motivation, and resilience to stress.

You’re not imagining things, you really are feeling the impact of stress more acutely than you may have been just a year ago. You might find that you ‘fly off the handle’ more easily with family members, or become overwhelmed more often than you used to. You might feel less inclined to socialise in busy groups or with people you don’t know as well.

Having a healthy dose of self-compassion is key here, as is developing your own stress-mitigation toolkit – whatever that looks like for you.

3. Joint pain

Silent symptoms aren’t just psychological. As our oestrogen levels drop, we also become prone to the musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause (70% of women will experience muscular or bone symptoms, and 25% will be disabled by them, through the transition from perimenopause to postmenopause).

This can include things like joint pain. With a maternal history of osteoarthritis, I panicked when my own hip started to hurt regularly every morning and after prolonged periods of sitting at my desk. Soon after starting hormone therapy the pain completely disappeared. Lower levels of oestrogen impact bone health too – if we are not proactively addressing both through exercise and nutrition, then we risk spending our twilight years fragile and dependent on others for our care.

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4. Skin issues

The drop in oestrogen (and collagen) can also have a pretty big impact on our skin - whether it’s excessively dry and flaky, itchy, or just more sensitive than before.

You may not need to overhaul your whole regime, or buy products specifically marketed at ‘menopausal skin’, but adding in more hydration and potentially going for products that won’t irritate your skin will help. And don’t forget to stay well hydrated - our thirst cues diminish as we age (isn’t getting older fun!)

5. More UTIs

If you find that you’re getting recurrent UTIs, or just getting them more often, that can also be due to the impact of less oestrogen: not only do tissues get thinner and less elastic, your vaginal microbiome changes and that can contribute to increased risk of UTIs. Localised oestrogen can really help, and it can be taken alone or with systemic HRT and is safe for long-term use.

Don’t ignore them…

Perimenopause is a window of opportunity to invest in our health and put ourselves at the top of our long ‘To Do Lists’.

So don’t ignore those silent symptoms. If you’re not sure what’s going on with your body or mind, try tracking for a few months so you can spot the patterns and get some data. And if you’re concerned, take your findings along to your next doctor’s appointment. There’s a symptom checklist and free guide to getting the best out of your appointment on our website.

Emma Thomas is the host of the Middling Along podcast and an executive coach. Her company Managing the Menopause provides training and education around the menopause transition.

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By Naga Munchetty, BBC presenter and journalist

It feels as if women are doing something wrong, almost criminal, when we fight for ourselves. Yet we often have to battle to be heard, which can be both exhausting and overwhelming.

In 2021, the Department of Health and Social Care launched a call for evidence to inform the government-led women’s health strategy for England.

Are you, like me, asking why it took until 2021 for this to happen?

Nearly 100,000 people got in touch to share their experiences and personal views, some on behalf of their loved ones. It would later emerge that 84 per cent of those respondents reported that, on more than one occasion, their concerns had been dismissed by healthcare professionals. According to the report: “Tens of thousands of examples were submitted. Based on our thematic analysis of this data, ‘not being listened to’ appears to manifest at all stages of the healthcare pathway. Specifically, many women told us:

• Their symptoms were not taken seriously or dismissed upon first contact with GPs and other healthcare professionals.

• They had to persistently advocate for themselves to secure a diagnosis, often over multiple visits, months and years.

If they did secure a diagnosis, there were limited opportunities to discuss or ask questions about treatment options and their preferences were often ignored.”

Women know our bodies. We know when something isn’t right, and that knowledge needs to be respected. So many women have been ignored or felt gaslit, made to feel as if it’s all in their head. The role of the medical profession is to help, to relieve pain and to cure it when possible. That will leave us to be as we are meant to be – brilliant. Able to contribute to and enhance society. The best versions of ourselves.

The point of my new book, It’s Probably Nothing, is to use the testimonies and experiences of women and men that I’ve interviewed to illustrate common problems with getting help, and to uncover what you need to know and ask for when advocating for yourself and your loved ones. 

From personal experience and from talking to other women, we often don’t take the time to prioritise our health because our lives are full, putting others first. We are too busy and exhausted to go through the painstaking process of asking for help when we strongly suspect that we’ll be met with pushback from professionals.

As a woman, I have become increasingly frustrated about the lack of respect given to women’s health, and this has been exacerbated by my personal experience. In fact, I’d go so far to say find me a woman who has never had to fight to be heard, or dismissed when she has expressed concerns about her wellbeing, and you’ll find it almost impossible. Too often women have been told that they are worrying about nothing, that the symptoms they describe are normal, that they should just accept that all women ‘go through it’ and that therefore the expectation for them is to endure poor health.

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The 2024 Women and Equalities Committee report into women’s reproductive health conditions concluded that: ‘Women are being told symptoms such as heavy, painful bleeding and incontinence are “normal”, that they are either too young to have a condition, or too old to expect treatment. As a result, women and girls are making repeat GP visits and ending up in A&E as their conditions worsen and become more complicated to treat.’

I have heard heartbreaking stories from women who have been left in extremely debilitated conditions because of health problems and symptoms that have been dismissed or ignored. Capable, smart and strong women who have been left to feel helpless and in despair; left to live with pain, misery and fear and with conditions that have proven to be life-changing – for the worse.

It’s time this stopped. Even something as simple as listening can make a world of difference. 

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Just one example of this is a GP who noticed my smear test had blood in the sample. I already knew why, as the speculum being used was causing me a disproportionate amount of pain and discomfort. It was because she really listened that I was finally offered a child-sized speculum, meaning I no longer dread that check-up. One size really does not fit all. 

Dame Lesley Regan, a doctor and the UK government’s first women’s health ambassador for England, has made it her mission for women to have timely access to diagnoses and treatment, arguing that female health issues have been an ‘afterthought’ and sidelined for too long. Over the past few years, there have been more conversations about women’s health, which is welcome and very much needed. Campaigners such as Davina McCall have shouted from the rooftops about menopause awareness. The taboo of women talking about their bodies has been explored with empathy by Nighat Arif in her book The Knowledge. 

As a result, more women are talking openly about their health issues and concerns with each other and sharing information gleaned through their own experiences. It’s almost as if we need to help each other in this way when professionals aren’t listening to us. 

I want to empower women, and those who love women, to advocate better for themselves. We are all trying to do our best – and we should have the tools at hand to be empowered to do that.

It’s Probably Nothing: Critical Conversations on the Women’s Health Crisis (and How to Thrive Despite it) by Naga Munchetty is published by HarperCollins, and will be released on 8 May.

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