BBC 5Live: The Emma Barnett Show - IVF Special

I was thrilled to appear on an IVF special of The Emma Barnett Show on 23rd April 2019, joining a group of 19 women - with over 100 cycles of IVF between us (costing over £500,000) - to share stories of heartache, hope, disappointment, strength and resilience, and give a raw and honest picture of the reality of IVF. It was a really emotional morning - but a whole lotta love in the room.

It was an honour to be able to take part in such an important discussion, with such a brilliant group of IVF warriors (my segment starts ~11 mins)

Observer Book Review: The Brink of Being

I was honoured to be asked to review Julia Bueno’s fantastic new book about miscarriage 'The Brink of Being’ for the Observer.

It’s estimated that one in four pregnancies ends in miscarriage, and yet it’s an experience that remains largely ignored  –  a grief that the world seemingly doesn’t know how to talk about. In The Brink of Being, psychotherapist Julia Bueno draws on her own personal experience, stories from her consulting room, and interactions with experts, to examine miscarriage within its broader cultural, medical and historical context  – encouraging us to think more, and think differently, about pregnancy loss.

It’s incredibly moving, and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s been affected by miscarriage, or who would like to better support someone else who has.

You can read the full review here.


Fertility Fest 2019: The Invisible Man

My latest blog post for Fertility Fest is about the male experience of infertility and why men's voices are so often missing from the narrative.

Is infertility seen as the woman’s problem? Are men’s emotional needs seen as less important? Are men uncomfortable talking about this issue? Are we uncomfortable (or disinterested) in listening to men talking about this issue? .

More and more men are starting to break cover, and step out of the shadows to talk more openly about male infertility — to make the invisible man visible. At Fertility Fest 2019, ‘The Invisible Man’ will feature artists and experts to explore all these issues: including performances from film-maker Tom Webb, theatre-maker Toby Peach, singer songwriter Bob Strawbridge and rapping reverend Elis Matthews, followed by a Q&A with Sheryl Homa, Director of Andrology Solutions and Michael Close, Director of LogixX Pharma, chaired by writer and journalist Sarfraz Manzoor.

The Invisible Man

Please do read the full post on the Fertility Fest blog, share, and let us know what you think

Related posts

For more on male factor infertility, check out some of my previous writing:

The WRISK Project: Does oral sex prevent miscarriage?

The WRISK project is a fantastic initiative from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) - in collaboration with Heather Trickey at the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University & the Wellcome Trust - that's aiming to improve communication of risk messages relating to pregnancy:

“Women who are planning a pregnancy or who are pregnant receive many public health messages that are intended to guide their decision making.

For example, they receive advice about what to eat, drink, how much they should weigh, and what medications they should or shouldn’t take. These messages are intended to improve outcomes for babies and mothers.

However, there is growing concern that messages do not always fully reflect or explain the evidence base underpinning them, and that negotiating the risk landscape can sometimes feel confusing, overwhelming, and disempowering.

This may negatively affect women’s experiences of pregnancy and motherhood, and be exacerbated by a wider culture of parenting that tends to blame mothers for all less-than-ideal outcomes in their children.”
 

#blowjobgate

And this set of crazy headlines - reporting the findings of a recently-published study that suggested that ‘Regularly swallowing your partner's semen could protect against miscarriage’ - couldn’t be more confusing, overwhelming, and disempowering.

Because what discussion of an incredibly painful topic such as pregnancy loss needs, is jokes about giving head…

And creating even more guilt and shame for women who are already likely to be blaming themselves for their losses, with manipulative pressure to perform sex acts.

Initially I assumed this was ‘just’ lazy, clickbait journalism, or an April fool - but it turned out to be a genuine study from researchers at the University of Leiden, published in the Journal of Reproductive Immunology.

I took to Twitter and posted some incisive commentary on this story…

(Nah, of course I didn’t - I took to Twitter and posted a massive rant about what a load of emotionally manipulative bullshit it was)

…and asked fertility experts weigh in with their thoughts on the (in)validity of this study.

The team at the WRISK Project saw my thread (<cough> rant), and got in touch with me to ask me if I’d be up for writing a guest post about this tabloid frenzy - which I jokingly started referring to as #blowjobgate - for their blog.

Which I did.

And you can read the full piece here: The WRISK Project: Does oral sex prevent miscarriage?

 

The TL;DR version

If you can't be bothered to read the article, here's the TL;DR:

  • No, blowjobs do not prevent miscarriages

  • Swallowing semen is not a cure for pregnancy loss

  • This study is misogynistic garbage

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk

 

The response

The experts who weighed into the discussion on Twitter were universally critical of the study, and expressed serious concerns about the review process that led to this being published by a supposedly reputable journal (which you can read about in the full piece) .

I was absolutely terrified that as a non-scientist I was going to get something really, badly wrong - so the positive response to the article from the likes of BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health was incredibly gratifying:

I’m so angry that such bad science, causing so much pain and distress, was published in the first place - here’s hoping that they don’t get funding for a follow up study…