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One woman’s mission to end the stigma around leaks and lumps after childbirth. Honest chat about incontinence, prolapse and pelvic pain. Not a trampoline in sight. Hosted by Helen Ledwick.
Hi. I'm Helen and this is Why Mums Don't Jump, busting taboos about leaks and lumps after childbirth. All the stuff that happens to your pelvic floor that no one ever talks about, incontinence, prolapse, pelvic pain, problems that affect millions of women, 1 in 3. I'm one of them. I have a prolapse.
Helen:My pelvic organs fell out of place after the birth of my second child, And if you had told me back then that I would be speaking about this stuff out loud, I would have told you to give your head a wobble.
Helen:Hi. How are you? I've been away for quite a bit, haven't I? But I'm back, for a cheeky little bonus episode, which I'm gonna let you hear in just a sec, but also to say that season 5, yes, 5, is on the way. Watch this space, catch up with all the other episodes, hang about, do your thing, keep following. Don't forget to sign up to the why moms don't jump email newsletter so you don't miss a thing. But for now...
Helen:So, yeah, very special this edition of Why Mums Don't Jump. It's been a while, but we have come back to celebrate the fact that every woman is coming back in June.
Julie:Very exciting.
Helen:Very exciting. So this is just to kind of give people a sense of what's coming up, what they can look forward to, what we're looking forward to, and we've got loads of people on the podcast. This is officially a record. I've never done a podcast with 5 people in it before, so we can all guess how this is gonna go.
Helen:So let's just whip around and get you all to introduce yourselves, starting with Aziza.
Aziza:Oh, hello, everyone. How's it going? I'm doctor Aziza Sesay. I'm a GP, GP educator, but I'm also health content creator. I run the platform Talks with Dr Sesay, and I'm also the crazy lady who's always walking around with her crochet vulva, trying to demystify that word and normalize conversations.
Aziza:I'm really looking forward to the festival. This year, I'm gonna be on in the main tent again, talk about the gender health gap. And I'm also on the education tent talking about anatomy, my favorite topic. So, yeah, really looking forward to it.
Helen:I'm going to ask you some more about that in a minute. Who's next?
Molly:Me. I'm next. Hey.
Helen:Who's me?
Molly:Molly. Molly Fenton. Hi. My name is Molly, and I am I've got multiple hats, but I'm probably best known for being the founder of the Love Period campaign, which was set up when I was 16 years old in 2019 because I wish I had a big sister to talk to a lot of these topics around women's health about. So that's what it's aimed to be and has been for the last 5 years.
Helen:Amazing. Hi, Molly. Who's next?
Suzanne:I'm next. I'm Suzanne Vernazza. Hi, everyone. I'm really excited to be here. So excited.
Suzanne:I'm a pelvic health physiotherapist, and, I also do lots of TikToks doing pelvic floor exercises called the Squeeze Along. So Know Your Flaws is a little not for profit that I run-in my spare time. So, yeah, that's me.
Helen:All all that spare time that you've got. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Helen:Speaking of spare time, last but not least.
Julie:I have loads of spare time. So I'm I'm Julie Cornish. I'm the founder of the Everyone Festival that we're talking about, and I'm also, in my spare time, I'm a colorectal consultant.
Helen:A you do.
Aziza:As you do.
Helen:Last year, Julie, like, I mean, I've said it to you already, but what an achievement to to pull that off. I think everyone apart from Suzanne, yeah, was there last year, so I was gonna get some of us just to kind of think a little bit about what what we loved about it. And I was like, honestly, there's so much. I know I don't have time to say everything. You know, the weather was glorious.
Julie:Yeah. That helped.
Helen:So m that helped. But, you know, even so, so many fabulous speakers. You know, I got to speak to a marquee full of fabulous people. I did a book reading, ate some great food, listened to some lovely music, but there was just this amazing energy about it. Met loads of pelvic health people that I only know from Instagram in actual real life.
Helen:Yeah. I can't do it justice with words, but even I was thinking one moment, I arrived there on the Friday. So this is before it even started and we're in the pub where we were staying that night and, ended up hanging out with some of the speakers for the next day.
Helen:And there was this moment where a group of us were sitting around eating dinner, and I realized that we'd all written books, well, basically about vaginas. There were 4 of us.
Helen:There was myself, Emma Brockwell, who wrote Why Did No One Tell Me? Luce Brett PMSL, Fran Bushe, who wrote My Broken Vagina. And I was it just pretty much went up and up from there, really. I mean, when when does that ever happen?
Julie:I would have loved to listen to that conversation.
Helen:It was an excellent conversation.
Helen:And as I say that was the night before, so, you know, it just got better from there. And Aziza, you were there but you hadn't arrived yet, but you you arrived after that.
Aziza:Yeah. I arrived really late the night before. It was, like, 11 o'clock or something crazy because I was working, but the event was incredible. I mean, honestly, Julie, you brought the weather. You brought the vibes.
Aziza:You brought the energy. It was incredible just to be around so many like minded passionate individuals who all want the same thing. Like, we all want women's and gynecological health to be at the forefront because for too long, it's been taking a back seat. It was, again, incredible to be around people who have seen on socials in real life, physically touching them, like, I mean, obviously, appropriately.
Julie:I got hugged quite a lot by you that day.
Aziza:I was so proud of you. It was amazing. Oh, let's not forget the food. There was incredible food, you know, freshly cooked. There was ice cream.
Aziza:I think I had 2 fresh ice cream. It was amazing. Yeah.
Helen:And gin. There was also gin. I'll just go and add gin.
Aziza:Someone asked me. I was, I was being an ambassador and, I was encouraging them to the come and they were, like, are there gonna be cocktails? I was like, don't worry. There will be there will be drinks. There's a variety. So yeah.
Helen:I'm sure there will be. And Molly, you, like, you had a quite a hand in organizing the thing as well. Right? So you you were so busy. I don't think I even managed to catch you to say hello.
Molly:Yes. So, obviously, I spoke at the in the main tent at the festival last year in the periods and endometriosis section. It, it was quite a big day because it was the first time in person I told people, and if people don't know, that I I live with a brain tumor, and I spoke about how my periods have changed. If I've had someone to talk to me about my periods, then I could have gone to a doctor sooner. You know, loads of things would have been a lot easier.
Molly:So that that festival massively kick started what is now almost like this career path that I'm on that would not have happened if it wasn't for the festival. But on the day itself, I also found I can was coming in from a very different section. I wasn't, you know, a doctor, a specialist, or anything. I had no idea who I stood amongst. Everyone had these amazing titles and I was like, Hi, I'm Molly, and the community that has come from Every Woman and the connections, like, we've got here afterwards, it's it's just insane.
Molly:It's absolutely incredible. The best of friends that I have today, like, all met through the everyone in the festival. So that community, even though very few of us have actually met before in person, it it just felt like the best place ever.
Helen:Yeah. I agree. Oh, Molly, that was, I didn't know that, what a massive day for you then. But, yeah, you put your finger on it, absolutely the community and the all the energy around that and the feeling was amazing, and I'm sure will it'll happen again this year because it can't not, when you put all those people in the same place who, as Aziza said, all want the same thing.
Helen:And, Julie, obviously, we said, like, you organized it. You must have felt, I saw you marching around with your clipboard on the day or whatever, but you must have been so proud.
Julie:There was a point where, like, we I spent 18 months organizing, I think, and it was sort of, it was a bit weird. And then there was a point where I was walking across the lawn, and there was the sign there and the people, and I could see the choir, hear the speakers. There's just so many people around, and all the hairs on my arms lifted. It was really weird. I was like, oh my god. This is actually working, you know.
Julie:But what I really liked about it was I had loads of people that came up to me. They just said, I I came for one talk, and I've stayed the whole day. I came on my own, and I've found a whole lot of people. Then there were loads of people that came, oh, I came with my friend. So she had a problem, and I came with her. And do you know what? I found about this and this and this, and it was just it was that kind of slight randomness because no one had really anticipated what it was gonna be. I knew in my head, and it was exactly it came out on the day exactly how I want it to, but, yeah, it was a bit quite overwhelming on the day.
Helen:Yeah. I know. I had a couple of those moments as well when I first arrived on-site, and I think you were giving us, whisking us around for a for a whistle stop tour of wherever there was. And I did feel like, you know, as we went around the back of the building and and looked across at the tents, and I think the choir was warming up and something, I also had, like, one of those moments. You made, you made a bit of alchemy there. Didn't you? You did.
Julie:This year's gonna be even bigger than last year. So just be careful.
Helen:I'm gonna ask you about that in a minute. But just before we go any further for anyone who knows nothing about the festival, just remind us what the thinking is behind it? And we'll talk about, you know, what people will see in a in a couple of minutes. But what what was the reason for starting it in the first place?
Julie:So, as I said, I'm a surgeon. I see a lot of pelvic health problems, and the biggest thing is about trying to educate people as to what's normal. Because so many times, I see women who say, I've had this problem for years and years, and I kinda think, you know what? If it had come to me 10 years ago, we can fix this or it would have been easy to fix if it was a bit, if it had been going on, you know, less time. So that was the idea is to basically educate people.
Julie:And once you know that it's not normal, then you are empowered to kind of keep pushing because sometimes it's hard to get past that barrier because someone said, oh, it's fine. It's because you're old. You've had a baby. Whatever. And then once you've got the power and the drive, where'd you go?
Julie:Because sometimes maybe you haven't got the services locally or, you know, you need some support outside of the doctors or or actually are there any private options if you haven't got NHS options. So that's kind of the thinking behind it, and it is for everyone. We've got the idea is it's for girls, second to school age, to, like, you know, your nineties, 100, whatever. There's no upper limit on this.
Aziza:I wanna say something real quick. I hope you don't mind me interjecting.
Helen:No. Jump in.
Aziza:What Julie said earlier with regards to people coming. And I always say this line, you don't know what you don't know. So I did a talk on gynec cancer and symptoms awareness and all of that. And I had someone who was in my talk who didn't know when we say postmenopausal bleeding also meant pink discharge and they'd had pink discharge as well. So they were like, oh my god.
Aziza:So they got checked out. They did have, a thickened uterine lining, but, actually, when they did the biopsies, everything, it wasn't cancer. But it was just that. I think that's what is also pretty amazing about this event. Like, people will come in thinking, you know, they're absolutely fine, which, you know, majority of the cases, it is, that is the case.
Aziza:However, they learn something. And if one person learns something and says it to another person, it says it to another person, that ripple effect because we know that women's health education is really lacking. Unfortunately.
Helen:Absolutely. That's amazing. I didn't, I didn't know that, but yeah, you can see how it happens and that's why it's so important. Just those little nuggets of information that you you didn't realize before can be the thing that changes everything. Mhmm.
Helen:Suzanne, you were not there last year, but you are coming this year. I mean, I hope I'm getting you all excited.
Suzanne:So excited. The bit I'm looking forward to is the touching everybody. And of course the food and all the speakers, of course, and all of that.
Suzanne:But just being in the community is is something is is gonna be something else. I'm so excited. And yeah, and it is. It is the community and the opportunity to talk and and reach people that wouldn't necessarily think that, oh, you know, we I need to know about this because, yeah, it most of the stuff that we do tend to talk about is either just taboo or yeah.
Suzanne:It's everything you've already said and having the opportunity to listen to others, to speak, to just, yeah, have fun in the moment as well and just make it less of a a thing that shouldn't be spoken about, more of a thing lots of things that we can talk about more openly. And I think that that is something I'm really, really proud, and I'm hoping I can add to and just proud to have been invited to be part of. So thank you for inviting me to come along. I'm super excited.
Julie:I think the message you've got is fab. That's why we need you there
Helen:Absolutely. What can what can we expect, Suzanne? Are we having a Squeeze Along? What are you doing?
Suzanne:Yeah, maybe we should. I mean, I'm sure I'm gonna be going around all day, and I should think when people will see me, if they know the Squeeze Along, I'm sure most people say they see my face and they squeeze their pelvic floor. So hopefully that will help people along the way. But, yeah, also I'll be explaining some of the things that because there is a lot of, I suppose, mixed messages about whether you should do pelvic floor exercise, whether you shouldn't. And actually, pelvic floor exercises aren't the solution for everyone.
Suzanne:So I'll hopefully be talking a bit of about that when I'm doing my workshop. So if anybody wants to come and to to listen or even ask me as I'm wandering around, please do. But, yeah, I'm also super excited to listen to some of the others that are talking as well. So, yeah, you'll be having to peel me off listening into all of the other speakers.
Helen:This is the problem. There isn't enough time in the day to see everythin., Aziza, what are you doing? I know you're bringing your crochet vulva.
Aziza:Yeah. I mean, it's my handbag. Someone actually said I used to turn it into a handbag and then I have to be the opening. So no. Yeah. No. I'll be there, and I'm really excited.
Aziza:As I said, I'm gonna be in 2 tents. We'll be at the opening. So we'll talk about the gender health gap again. I'll be with, doctor Anisha Patel, who's @doctorsgetcancertoo So she's a bowel cancer survivor.
Aziza:And, also, Neelam from Cysters will be there and Helen Helena Boyce, I believe, from Black Women Rising. And then the educational tent, I'm really looking forward to because it's I'm really excited, and I really applaud Julie for having youngsters come in because that's something I again, I'm really passionate about. Just like Molly, we need to start young. They need to be aware about their anatomy, about the fact that there are so many different gynecological conditions that exist, and also knowing they're normal and knowing what is not normal. So I'm really excited about the educational tent, and and and I'm excited that everybody is going to be involved. So this is all genders need to come and and know about women's health because it affects 51% of the population. It'll affect you directly and indirectly.
Julie:The other thing is the education tent is, yes, it's, like, applicable for sort of secondary school age and birth, but it's actually for the parents, mums and dads. So if you wanna be able to understand what your daughter is going through or you wanna be able to explain something to your daughter and you kind of you're not sure yourself, then you come along. And if you're struggling for that conversation because you don't know the language to use, well, if you both come and sit together, maybe that might open some conversations.
Helen:It is just gonna be one of those things where last year, I think I got to about 3 things. You almost need to spread it over a weekend, but then there's something about it being so intense on that day with everything happening all at once. Molly, what have you got going on?
Molly:So, quite a switch this year because of last year and the the feedback that we got. Apparently, of my whole talk, I would only remember the last 30 seconds.
Helen:What did you do?
Molly:Well, it's when I whipped out my my brain tumor hat, which is now quite quite big on social media and explains why I do what I do mattered to me so much. Mhmm. And how, you know, I think we think of menstrual health, but, actually, it's linked to so many parts of the body. It's not just in one area. So this year, I'm in the survive and thrive session in the main tent, which is crazy.
Molly:I'm surviving. And I'm thriving in many areas, but still learning too, and it's quite a journey. But, also, in that session, instead of just, telling my story, which, 1, is a bit boring for me to do, but, 2, people don't really need to hear it, what I'm doing and how I'm changing things kind of in the area on the panels that I sit on, the, roles as an ambassador I take on, everyone being every woman being one of them, and how I kind of channel that energy and found a new way to succeed as a young woman who is ill and has kind of had a lot taken off her because of that, because there isn't a lot of conversation about how to get back to life in that rehabilitation phase. As well as that, I've been working very closely with, the social media team at EveryWoman. I love being there and helping out and then doing that as an ambassador.
Molly:So I imagine I will be content creating all day and grabbing everyone to make funny TikToks and videos and lots of photos, which will be excellent. But, also, my team at Love Your Period are talking in the education tent. So if I have time, I hope to go and see them. But if not, they're in the management of my amazing younger sister, Tilly. So she will be running lovely period for the day.
Molly:So I can be an Every Woman ambassador and fully enjoy that role.
Helen:Oh, that's amazing. Just loads of stuff, isn't it? I didn't know your sister was involved as well. That's fantastic. She has got a big sister.
Molly:Yes. She does. She does. But I could have been a better one at the time when she she was very open about how she came to me with a lot of things that she felt she couldn't talk to anyone else about, and I pushed her away from a lot of that. So it's about doing that journey together and, you know, realizing that we aren't perfect. Naturally, we went around things the wrong way or I went around things the wrong way and recognizing it and using that experience to try and make the community a bit safer and nicer for young people.
Helen:Yeah. None of it's easy, is it? Flipping heck, Molly, you've had quite quite a time of it, haven't you? But, if it doesn't sound too patronizing or whatever, like well done and amazing work. I'm looking forward to hanging out.
Helen:And so I guess I'll be there as well. I'll be chairing a talk about mental well-being, which, you know, surrounds everything we've spoken about here and every other women's health issue that's going. And I'll also be running a Why Mums Don't Jump, meetup, a kind of informal get together where you can meet some like minded people with pelvic floor issues. Because that's been game changing for me, right? Meeting people in my local area who can support each other and just not feel embarrassed. And, you know, once you've shared your gynecological distress with someone, then you're just best friends forever, aren't you? So, so we'll have some of that going on.
Julie:And don't forget, you're also Yeah. She's also gonna be signing a book as well. So if anyone wants to see Helen and get a copy of her book, yeah, you can come and see her and get it signed.
Aziza:I was just gonna shout about your book because when it came, my daughter, she's 6 now. She was 5 at the time. And she was like, Why Mums Don't Jump? And then she's like, mummy, why don't mums jump? And I was like, we'll talk about it one day.
Helen:Yeah. That's a sit down with a cup of tea, where do we, where do we start here? Yes. Oh, that's so cute. Okay.
Helen:So I think the last thing we need to do is try to to run down with Julie what else we should be looking out for this year. So I know you're gonna have to take, like, a big breath now. Fine. Go for it.
Julie:So, we've got the main tent, same as last year, with amazing speakers. So we've got IBS, mental health, sexual health, contraception, menopause, survive and thrive, and, gender health inequality is focusing on marginalized communities. Then we have an education tent, which has literally got everything from menstrual health, anatomy, mental, bowels, bladder, pelvic, all the stuff you need from that.
Julie:Then we have, living with. So that's all the stuff that basically people put up with but maybe struggle to find help. So endometriosis, fibromyalgia, Ehlers Danlos, long COVID, menopause again, infertility. We've got someone talking about uterine transplants, which is gonna be, like, just blow my mind.
Julie:Then we've got Thrive Through Sport, which is awesome. So we're working with Sport Wales. And we have a bit of a highlight. So we just found out that that Tanni Gray-Thompson , Baroness Tanni Gray-Thompson, Paralympian, is gonna be talking. That's really exciting.
Julie:That's about getting women and girls into sport who've not been into it or back into sport after injury or how to use sport to deal with in with, like, illness and injury. Then we have cancer and survivorship. So we've got Anisha Patel, Liz O'Riordan, who's in the main speaker tent as well. She's fantastic. Breast cancer.
Julie:We've got... How to Know if You Have Secondaries, How to Recover After Surgery, How to Prepare for Surgery, Misinformation and Myths. We have the gut hut, the poo tent, which is obviously kinda where I'm interested so, you know, how to have a happy bowel, you know, what to do if your bowel's gone crazy after having had a baby, all that sort of stuff. Then the other one, oh, we've got the art workshops. So we have really cool art stuff. So we've got motivate art tents, in which case we have Hazel Mead who's coming who did this amazing book about art illustrations.
Julie:We've got someone doing booby pom poms. You can do a DIY vulva. These are drop in sessions, part of your ticket. Wow. We've got Black & Beech. We've got these feminist stuff. We've got music, food, drink as well, non-alcoholic as well. A 100 workshops with dietitians, psychologists, physiotherapists, nurses, doctors, nutritionists. You name it. We've got it.
Julie:And we do have an upper limit this year of 3,000 people. We got a 1,000 last year, and we had people coming from Scotland to Cornwall. So it is a full day. One ticket gets you access to all the tents, and the the drop in stuff as well. But there are more workshops you can get as well. But yeah.
Helen:And tickets are available online now. Right?
Julie:Yes. Every Woman Fest.
Helen:Alright. Well, that's it. I'm gonna let you go because I know for a fact that Aziza's children are with her next door neighbor right now, and she needs to go rescue them.
Aziza:Exposed. Exposed.
Julie:I can't wait to see you all day. It's gonna be amazing.
Helen:Oh, I really missed this. I hope to see you in Cardiff on June the 15th and do make sure you don't miss the details about season 5 of the podcast which is coming soon. Sign up for my email newsletter by hitting the contact button at whymumsdontjump.com and I promise not to spam you. That's it. Bye for now.