With International Women’s Day, Autoimmune Awareness Month, and Endometriosis Action Month all taking place in March, you may well have encountered FTWW staff and volunteers at a wide array of events this month, where we’ve been raising awareness of all things female health.
Blog by FTWW Volunteer, Eliza
FTWW Volunteer and Community Coordinator, Louise, was delighted to be joined by our Volunteer Fibroids Champion, Carina, at the Healthy Lives Community Engagement event at Cardiff City Stadium earlier this month, focused on the ‘health, wellbeing, screening, immunisations and support services’ available in local communities.
Long-time followers of FTWW will be aware that perinatal mental health is one of our campaign areas, led by our Champion, Nia, whose own experiences of postpartum psychosis led her to campaign for a unit close to home with Welsh language provision.
We’re delighted to welcome our new Volunteer and Community Coordinator, Louise Kalicinski, to our team! Louise is based in South Wales and joins FTWW from a background of working with children and families from diverse communities.
FTWW’s Debbie and Isabel were pleased to be able to present to the All-Wales Clinical Supervisors for Midwives Network on 30th October, on the need for maternity services and care to understand and accommodate the needs of those who are living with long-term health conditions, are disabled, or neurodivergent.
October is menopause awareness month and – as one of FTWW’s key campaign areas – we have been very busy attending and hosting events and shining a spotlight on life with menopause. We were delighted to spend World Menopause Day with our friends from Cysters at their fantastic ‘Marginalised and Menopausal’ event in Cardiff. We also hosted a webinar for FTWW members, ‘Managing Menopause Symptoms with CBT’, led by FTWW Volunteer Menopause Champion and Principal Clinical Psychologist, Dr Dawn Owen DClinPsy. Fellow FTWW Volunteer Menopause Champion, Lisa Nicholls, was also interviewed by BBC Radio Wales’ Jason Mohammed…
Researchers at Cardiff and Bangor University, (including FTWW Volunteer Endometriosis Champion, Rachel!) want to find out what works (or doesn’t!) in using tracking apps/diaries, specifically the Endometriosis Cymru Symptom Reporting Tool.
Following the very exciting initial findings from the Decode ME study, which found that people with a Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) diagnosis have significant genetic differences in their DNA compared to the general population, we were delighted to hear BBC Radio Wales cover the study – and people’s lived experiences – in detail during an episode of The Phone in with Oliver Hides.
We’ve had a great month of attending a wide range of events including Cardiff and Vale University Health Board’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Community event, the Senedd Cross-Party Group on Women’s Health, Betsi Cadwaladr’s Women’s Health Stakeholder Event for health board staff, and The WOMB Summer Festival in Cardiff.
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