Twenty years ago, I and two colleagues wrote a book called The Sexual Politics of Disability, based on conversations with 44 disabled people about their gender, sexuality, self-image and experience of sex and love. Recently, we revisited some of the original participants and what we found was that there had been some profound changes for […]
Mammograms, or X-ray pictures of the breast, have been used for decades to detect early stage cancers. They are a useful tool but they have their drawbacks, not least that they do not work well in women who have dense breast tissue, who tend to be younger, and they only pick up masses that are […]
Thirty years ago, when I first started working as an obstetrician and gynaecologist in the NHS, I hardly ever saw a patient who was worried about the size and shape of her labia. If I did get a referral, it would be a genuine case where the woman had abnormal labia. Today, I see girls […]
Read More… from Why 13 year old girls are out of love with their labia
Teenagers need to adapt to changes in their bodies and emotions as they go through puberty. As a GP working in family health for the last 16 years, I often have to talk to parents and their offspring about the key health issues to affect boys and girls as they grow up. Acne vulgaris This […]
A few years ago, as I was attending a medical dinner in London with 500 or more senior medical colleagues, I was disturbed that the guest of honour began his speech with the phrase: ‘We all understand that the most important ‘qualities’ of any doctor are compassion and empathy.’ I was even more concerned that there appeared […]
The BBC2 TV series, Five Star Babies: Inside the Portland Hospital, professed to be an ‘exclusive glimpse inside the UK’s only maternity hospital’ and presented an image of childbirth which was glamorous and aspirational. Here, footballer’s wife turned fashion guru Victoria Beckham had her babies, with the customary C-section to ensure that the process of […]
Having a baby is the most natural thing in the world. Or is it? Today’s new mothers are more likely than ever to go through labour that has been artificially induced. In fact, the trend for inducing labour has reached epidemic proportions over the last two decades. According to the Department of Health figures for […]
International development charity WaterAid has launched an engaging interactive dual-narrative film featuring One Born Every Minute midwife Delia Jepson at work in Liverpool Women’s Hospital, and midwife Juliana Msoffe in Kiomboi hospital in rural Tanzania. The film gives a window into the parallel worlds of the midwives, with the aim of highlighting the challenge of […]
Read More… from Parallel lives of midwives delivering life with and without water by WaterAid
Many people do not realise that under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act (OAPC), abortion remains a criminal offence unless the criteria set out in the 1967 Abortion Act are followed. The Director of Public Prosecution’s (DPP) decision in October 2013 not to prosecute two doctors caught up in the Daily Telegraph ‘sting’ operation […]
Female Genital Mutilation (also known as cutting, closing and female circumcision) is high on the political agenda in the UK. It is a Human Rights violation and a form of abuse against women and girls. It is illegal in England and Wales as per the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003. The practice comprises all procedures […]