Woman's Hour - Diver Christine Grosart on 'Ghost Fishing'; Katya Adler discusses Annalena Baerbock; Teenage drinking research; Foetal medicine

Episode Date: April 22, 2021

Angela Merkel steps down as Chancellor or Prime minister of Germany in September. Nicknamed Mutti or mummy she has held the top job since 2005 so her departure is a huge shift at a challenging time in global and national politics. All eyes are focused on possible successors and one candidate in the frame is Annalena Baerbock. On Monday, the Green Party announced she would be its choice to take over from Angela Merkel. She is likely to be the only woman in the race for the job and she already being compared to young female leaders in New Zealand or Finland. Anita Rani talks to the BBC’s Europe Editor Katya Adler about the coming election and the chances of a second woman taking the top job.Research by a London academic suggests that teenagers who are heavy social media users are more likely to drink alcohol. Dr Linda Ng Fat from University College London analysed data on how long teenagers were chatting or interacting on social media sites including Facebook, MySpace and Bebo and what impact that had on drinking. The study found that 18% of participants aged 10-15 years drank at least monthly, with a greater risk of more frequent drinking for each additional hour of social media use. Anita talks to Dr Ning Fat who explains her findingsFilmed at one of the UK’S leading foetal medicine units in the country, a new Channel 4 series, Baby Surgeons: Delivering Miracles, shines a light on the rarely seen and often complex work being carried out inside the womb to save the lives of unborn babies. Anita is joined by Basky Thilaganathan, Professor and Director of Foetal Medicine at St George’s Hospital London and Susie, who developed Twin to Twin transfusion syndrome while pregnant with triplets.The pandemic has allowed many people to appreciate and connect with nature in a way they didn't have time to before. But as an island nation, our knowledge of the struggles faced by the life in our seas is still very poor. Every year the fishing industry inadvertently loses nets and gear that end up trapping and killing marine wildlife. But thankfully there is a team of volunteer divers who are dedicated to finding and removing this 'ghost gear' from UK waters. In celebration of Earth Day, Anita speaks to Christine Grosart from Ghost Fishing UK about the under-appreciated wonders around our coastline, the perils of retrieving lost nets, and what non-diving folk can do to make a big difference to the health of our seas.Presented by Anita Rani Producer: Louise Corley Editor: Beverley Purcell

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and happy Earth Day. A day to think about our magnificent home, this glorious, perfect planet we all share, who now needs a lot of TLC from all of us. While Joe Biden hosts a summit with 40 global leaders to talk climate, we thought, why not ask you, lovely lot, how you feel about it? Since we all watch David Attenborough's Blue Planet,

our eyes open to the damage we're doing to our seas. Did it make you change any of your habits? If so, what have you done? I know from making my BBC One programme War on Plastic that lots of you are reducing your plastic waste and kids and young people in particular are very switched on to the environment. And this last year in lockdown, well, we're all paying more attention to the natural world, aren't we? Whether it's growing plants and veg or noticing the nature all around us. So let me know. Let's hear about the changes

you've made, if indeed you have. Maybe you don't think you should have to. Whatever your thoughts, get in touch. You've already started tweeting in. Gray says, we've pledged not to fly. Five years flight free in 2021. My husband cycles three times a week to work. A total of 180 kilometers a week. Age 53, despite back and knee ops 10 years ago. He's healthier and fitter.

So they've got solar panels, peat-free gardening, milking glass reusable bottles, veg box, and no products with palm oil. And Liam says people only do things when it hits their pockets, otherwise they can't be bothered. Put a 10p tax on each plastic bag or make them biodegradable and why

are things still wrapped in plastic that takes five minutes to get them out of it? Yes, I couldn't agree more. So let me know what your thoughts are. Jair Bolsonaro, the president of Brazil, suggested a few years ago we should eat less and poop every other day. Interesting. Doesn't sound very healthy to me, though. So you can text us on 84844. Of course, you can tweet. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. Now, this autumn, it will be the end of an era in

Germany and Europe as Angela Merkel steps down as chancellor. She's been such a huge and important figure in German politics, they call her mum as a nickname. So who will take the top job? We'll be finding out about one very interesting candidate, the only woman in the running, co-leader of the Green Party, Annalena Baerbock. And an astonishing new series is being broadcast on Channel 4. They gained access to the uk's leading fetal medical unit and we get to watch the surgeons perform surgery in the womb to save the lives of yet to be born babies it's an emotional roller coaster of a program i'll be joined by the incredible surgeon and one of the mothers who went through an almost unbelievable procedure to save her triplets then we'll be going into an alien world deep under the surface of our British waters with woman, our powerlister and deep sea diver, Christine Grossart.

You can text me about anything you hear on the show, 84844. Texts will be charged at your standard message rate. And of course, you can email us by going to our website. Now, Angela Merkel stepped down as the German chancellor in September, marking the end of an era in European politics. Nicknamed Mutti, she's held the job since 2005 and her departure comes at a particularly challenging time in global and national politics. All eyes are now focused on her possible successors and one of them is Anna-Lena Baerbock. On Monday, the Green Party announced she would be its choice to take over from Angela Merkel and she's likely to be the only woman in the race. Already she's been compared to the young female leaders

in New Zealand and Finland but what are her actual chances of getting the top job? And to top it all off, she's only 40. To tell us more about her and the elections I'm joined now by our Europe editor, Katja Adler. Morning Katja. Good morning. Apart from making us all feel like massive underachievers tell us a bit more about Anna about Anna Lena. Who is she? I understand she's got quite an interesting backstory. She competed for Germany as a trampoliner. So that's leading to all sorts of cliches at the moment about, you know, giving boring German politics a bounce or, she's not known. Remember that Germany is a federation of states of 16 states and they're very powerful in Germany.

So she hasn't had any experience leading any of those states. She hasn't had any experience in government. So her critics say, yes, maybe she's fresh faced, but she's untried and untested. And she describes her childhood as a mixture of being dragged along to anti-nuclear demos by her parents and then having, you know, cake afterwards at home. So it's sort of cozy middle class radicalism is how it's being described a lot in Germany. And I think that takes you a step closer to the Green Party, because I think there's a temptation, perhaps, Green Party, maybe you think, oh, listen, this is a one policy issue party. Not so definitely for the Greens in Germany. They have a very sort of coherent manifesto, sort of what they call the social contract, both in Germany

and at EU level. They are very pro-EU. And Elena Baerbock is actually pro-NATO as well, which causes some consternation in her party, which is sort of divided between what they call realos, so those who sort of adhere to realpolitik, and fundis, the more fundamentalists. She's very much a realo. So she's very much at the center of her party. And that is what is attracting potentially a lot of voters in Germany. Also, because you mentioned Angela Merkel. I mean, she's been a mainstay of German politics, Chancellor for 16 years. And there are loads of Germans who say to you, you know what, I don't describe myself as a conservative. But I did vote for Angela Merkel, who is centre right, her party is centre right. Because I like her. And I thought she was a safe pair of hands, women as well, the female

vote last time around the centre right, 52% of voters were were women. So a lot of those, whether it's the female vote, or those who don't define themselves as conservative. Now that Angela Merkel's going, they could drift elsewhere. And a centrist green is possibly possibly where they might go. That's what polls are indicating now. But I have to say, before we continue, big, alarming warning here. We are five months off the election. so a lot can happen in politics. And although everyone's very excited about Annalena Baerbock, this is definitely not a sure thing that she will be Germany's next chancellor. Don't worry, Katya, I won't be

asking you to make a prediction for us. What are the issues that will force the Germans to go green then? What could make them vote for her? So I think, as I there's there's her as a person the fact that she's young and that she's a woman she's the only female candidate because the other serious contenders on the center right and center left are men in their 60s so a generation older than her and so you know some of her her sort of supporters say well who needs another old white man? Germans tend to be careful in their politics, if you like, they do like the political centre at the end of the day. Angela Merkel really dragged her Conservative Party, sometimes kicking and screaming towards the centre. And Annalena Baerbock is very much in the centre of the Green Party. So I think, you know,

that there they could, she could attract voters as well. And there are those who also say a lot depends on the summer holiday. And yes, what am I talking about? Yes, you've written about this, haven't you? You've written about how holidays to Mallorca could decide the outcome of the election. Now explain this to us. Okay, it sounds very flippant. And obviously, it doesn't depend on this. But Germans at the moment are not in a happy place. They're not in a happy place because, you know, they've suffered COVID-19 like everyone else. Germany was, you know, held up as a poster child of how to deal with the pandemic in the first wave. But now, you know, it's seen rising infection

problem about dealing with the pandemic nationwide because of this regional system, if you like. So every region is so powerful. Angela Merkel hasn't been able to say up until now, this is what you've got to do on your lockdowns or these are the measures you've got to take. And even though from the outside, Germany looks like, you know, this rich, smooth running country. I mean, if you're old enough like me, you might remember the Vorsprung durch Technik, you know, for cars, you know, sort of so that you advance through advanced technology. But actually, Germany has been really bad under Angela Merkel investing in itself. So like in infrastructure, in renewable energies, and also, you know, in digitally connecting the country.

So what you've had when it comes to COVID, for example, like where the UK has been so successful with the vaccine rollout, a centralised system through GPs. In Germany, it's fallen down because there is no digital, like it's not digitalised to send the information from one GP's office to another to some kind of central database. So, again, that's where the Greens have said we're going to invest in the country, you know, in infrastructure, roads, bridges, trains. But also we're going to invest in digitalization and in renewable energies.

And it's not just critics of the current government that has been saying that if you look at the OECD, they also have been criticising Germany for that and say in order to get Germany quicker out of all the damage that COVID-19 has wrought on the country, then you would need to invest in those areas. So Germans are very downhearted at the moment. They haven't got access to vaccines as quickly as in the UK. A lot of people have been ill. And, you know, they can't go on summer holiday. It's not a cert yet, depending on how the vaccine program goes. So there are those who say, look, the Germans love their holiday to Mallorca in Spain, so much so that it's called the 17th state of Germany. It's nicknamed back in Germany. So if they get to go on their holiday in the Med,

they come back energised, also vaccinated, then they might be in the mood to take a political risk, if you like, on this relative novice, to have a Green Party chancellor. And so that's why people are talking about the summer holidays in connection with the election. I love it. You just need a holiday to put them in a good mood, come back and vote for them. And a trampoline. And a trampoline, yes.

But do not write off the other contenders on the centre right yet. Who's she up against? So in Angela Merkel's camp, it's Armin Laschet. So he is also very much to the centre of the party. He follows in Angela Merkel's steps politically. He's the leader, the president of one of the most populous regions of Germany. But he's not actually very popular, even in his own party. So whereas people in the past have said, oh, the Greens are chaotic. They had this really slick leadership campaign or chancellorship campaign for their chancellor candidate. Whereas the, you know, the normally

sort of stayed and reliable by reputation as centre-right have just had a bloodbath in political terms between two candidates. Amin Lashat has won, but he's, as I say, he's not that popular in his own party. And many of those voters who liked Angela Merkel, who's always been more popular than her party, are now saying they might go and look elsewhere. On the centre left, you're looking at the current finance minister of Germany. So from the Social Democrat Party, he's 63. So, again, of another generation, he's towards the centre of his party, you get the idea, centrist, centrist, centrist. It's unlikely the Social Democrats will become the biggest party. But the way that Germany's system is set up, particularly after

the Second World War, it was designed so that no one leader or one party could ever become too powerful in the country. You're looking at a coalition government. It really looks likely the Greens will be part of the next German government. But whether they get the chancellorship or not, that is the big question. And it's too early to tell. But it has big reverberations, not just for Germany, but of course, the EU. It is the most powerful country in the EU.

So, you know, and also relations with the UK, were it to be a Green Chancellor, you've got COP26, of course, that the UK is hosting the UN Climate Conference in November in Glasgow. So that is something that if you did have a Green Chancellor, that's something that would really definitely bring those two sides together. And as you said, still five months to go, so we'll be watching closely. Cathy Adler, thank you very much. Now, research by a London academic suggests that teenagers who are heavy social media users are more likely to drink alcohol.

Dr Linda Ningfat from the University College London analysed data on how long teenagers were chatting or interacting on social media sites, including Facebook, MySpace and Bebo, and what impact that had on drinking. The study found that 18% of participants aged 10 to 15 years drank at least monthly with a greater risk of more frequent drinking for each additional hour on social media use. And I'm joined by Dr Ning Fat now who can tell us a bit more about her findings. Morning, Linda. What were your key findings? Good morning.

So in our study we analysed survey responses from over 6,000 young people from understanding society who have followed up over time. We found that among 10 to 15 year olds for each additional hours of social media use the risk of drinking in the past month increased. Among 16 to 19 year olds, we found that the heavier social media users were more likely to binge drink in the past month. When we looked at the association over time, we found a similar relationship in that those who had increased their social media use over time were more likely to have increased their drinking over the period as well. So if they're spending more time on social media, they're going to drink more. Why is that? What's happening? What is social media doing? Is it pictures that they're exposed to? Is it advertising?

What's going on? From our study, we cannot be sure of what the causal link is, but we have thought of some reasons why this relationship might exist. Like you said, firstly, there could be the influence of alcohol-related content on social media, such as the posting of photos of young people drinking, which could normalise being drunk. Secondly, there could be the role of alcohol advertising at play here. And thirdly, that heavier social media users were more likely to be dissatisfied with their lives. We do not know yet whether poor mental health from using social media might actually be influencing drinking

behaviour, which is something we would like to explore further. I mean, the data you analysed was from 2012 to 2013. The social media landscape has changed so dramatically in that time since then, and teenagers are using it to an even greater extent. And we're not going to go backwards. It's just so part and parcel of life now, isn't it? What do you expect to see now? That's right. So the study was conducted seven years ago.

And as you mentioned, there's been a dramatic change, not just in usage, but also in the kind of platforms that are out there, such as Instagram and TikTok. So we strongly would recommend more research into this to see how the influence of new technology and new social media platforms might be influencing how young people drink and the kind of alcohol-related content that are on these social media platforms that young people are sharing. It could be videos or photos of them being drunk and also the role of alcohol advertisers on this platform. So we need more research to be done in the area, basically?

Yes, to establish what exactly might be behind this relationship between social media use and increased drinking among young people. OK, Dr Ning Phat, thank you very much, Linda. Thank you for joining us this morning. Now, in a new series, reporter Millie Charles has been explaining how becoming a mother in long-term recovery from addiction has opened her eyes to the stigmas and challenges faced by women at risk of having their children removed.

Millie was given lots of chances to change, but as a number of children in care rises and drug and alcohol issues a factor in many cases, are these women getting the help they need? Millie tells her story, talks to professionals trying to help, finds out about the impact on children and asks mothers themselves for their experiences. I was shocked when I found out that I was pregnant. I was scared because I was shocked when I found out that I was pregnant. I was scared because I was still using and I didn't want my child to be put through being on drugs

and being born addicted. But I went to the services, the drug services, to seek help. What sort of options were presented to you? There wasn't any. I remember one day I turned up there, there was no answer. So I just, I looked through the letterbox and I could see my daughter sobbing on the stairs. And she was probably about five years old at that time.

Luckily the door was open, so I went in, I grabbed her and gave her a hug and stuff. And I opened the living room door and it was just this array of passed out people, you know, residues of a party just all around them. And I remember just thinking, oh my God. But I also felt powerless towards the mother because, you know, I don't want the mother to be in this mess.

I just feel so, so grateful that I have had the chances and that I've had a baby in recovery and that I didn't have a baby in the midst of the addiction and then have that added kind of trauma to recover from because I don't know how you recover from that. I don't think you can and I don't think that just because you have an addiction, I don't think that would take away the pain. Maybe it would blot it out at times, but it's every parent's worst nightmare, isn't it? Whatever reason, losing their child. And there would be such a level of responsibility. It was because of something that you did.

I think that that's the bit that would be so hard. You can hear more stories of Second Chances on BBC Sounds and the series continues on Woman's Hour over the next few weeks. Now filmed at one of the UK's leading fetal medicine units in the country, a new Channel 4 series, Baby Surgeons, Surviving Miracles, shines a light on the rarely seen and often complex work being carried out inside the womb to save the lives of unborn babies. We hear from Baski Dilaganathan who is a professor and director of fetal medicine at St George's Hospital London and Susie who developed twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome while pregnant with triplets. The series starts on Monday at

nine o'clock and Professor Baski and Susie join me now to talk about it. Professor Baski, if I can come to you first, why did you say yes and agree to have the cameras in surgery with you? Good morning, that's an extremely good question. I don't think many people out there know or understand about the profession of fetal medicine and i think this was a way to do but more importantly we really wanted to give a voice to the women and their experiences because that's not commonly known and so that we would really increase the awareness of such conditions and and the quite difficult decisions that parents have to make yeah increasing our awareness and also an amazing showcase

of what can be done nowadays if you are encountering a very complex pregnancy. I mean, indeed, I mean, that wasn't the intention. It really was to make sure that people had some awareness of the journey. But indeed, St George's is one of the specialist centres in the UK that undertake this kind of surgery, and it was an opportunity to showcase it. I mean, we already have 24 hours in A&E, which have been encamped in the hospital for many years.

And this is, you know, so we receive lots of opportunities like this. Susie, you were treated by Professor Baski in the film. You'd been trying for a baby for a long time and then you fell pregnant with triplets. So tell, explain your story what happened uh morning anita morning um yeah quite a journey um very surreal the whole thing beginning to end but um i think the moment we found out we're pregnant with triplets um we knew that the chances were possibly not a positive outcome. In fact, you know, really the entire pregnancy,

your on tenterhooks worried of what the outcome is going to be because it's so high risk. And I think for us that felt particularly ironic, I suppose, given the journey that we'd had to get there over so many years. You'd been through rounds of IVF, hadn't you? Yeah, yeah, around five years worth. And I think this is our last shot at it. And luckily, it was a happy ending, very lucky for us. But I think when you go through that process, it's very difficult then to sort of remain positive, I suppose, anyway, because obviously you're naturally nervous.

And I think when we were diagnosed with TTTS. Which is the twin to twin syndrome, yes. Yeah, exactly. That Basco identified. I think that sort of, again, alarms us to how dangerous it was being pregnant with triplets or just high risk. And I think the team were amazing how they led us through that. And they were very clear from the outset. Any medical professional that we came across didn't sugarcoat it and were clear about the risks involved the risk both to myself and to the triplets and how there would be a strong chance of them either not surviving or maybe one surviving or then having long-term health issues but we decided to close our eyes and jump I suppose and go with nature rather than

intervene in the early days because when an option is to have a reduction I believe that's offered to many mothers of multiples um and we decided to go with nature and then of course um unfortunately we were that 15 percent of people where the twin to twin transfusion syndrome was identified um and I mean Dr Baski made it even though it was possibly the hardest thing we've been through. He couldn't have been more empathetic and very clear. And we see it. We see the empathy. We see what you're going through. It is such an emotional watch as well, because we're with you, Susie, throughout the whole experience. Yeah. Constantly just thinking what is going through your mind? You know, just having to make these huge decisions. Let's find out from you, Professor Basky, what is twin-to-twin syndrome?

What was Susie going through? What was her case? Yeah. So it's important to say that most twin pregnancies will have an uncomplicated course. But where twins share a placenta and two of Susie's babies shared a placenta, there's a one in eight chance that they will share that placenta and two of Susie's babies shared a placenta, there's a one in eight chance that they will share that placenta unequally. So one will get too much and one will get too little and untreated that results in the loss of the pregnancy 90% of the time. Nine out of 10 chance that without

treatment Susie would have lost all three babies. But we are now able to, and we have been for 20 years treating that condition now and with a 80 85 success rate and you know as soon as we identified that tdts was occurring we undertook the treatment and it's so lovely to see suzy here without her triplets around suzy 90 chance i mean you really didn't have a choice did you? You decided that you were going to go through with the operation? Yeah and I think it sounds strange to say but there was almost a slight relief with the fact that we didn't have a choice. I remember the day vividly when Dr Baski said that because we went through a week of waiting to see whether the twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome had got any worse and it really had rapidly over that week um and following the scan where you know it was quite clear even to our

eyes that we had to do something um i think weeks leading up to that we thought we were going to have to make a horrible decision that we didn't want to have to make um and i think once it was as simple as if we don't intervene um your babies won't survive then no one can argue with that and i think the problem is it goes against any mother's natural instinct we naturally as soon as we find out we're pregnant we want to protect ourselves protect our baby wrap ourselves up in cotton wool. And I think when someone says they need to kind of intervene in that, you immediately, it goes against everything that you understand as a woman and as a parent. But then the case was this was going to save our,

or hopefully save our babies. So it was a no-brainer in the end. And what was going through your mind? Because you're watching the operation. You can see your foetuses whilst Dr Baski is doing this incredible operation what was going through your mind at that time I didn't really look at that much to be honest I think I um it's weird that you know one of the most sort of uh traumatic experiences probably in my life so far and I it is all a bit of a blur which I'm ashamed to say but it's kind of I guess it's you know

fight or flight and it's the way the body coats but I remember certain things like the feeling of Dr Baski um um basically entering the abdomen um with a telescope and then the only other thing that I really remember is that the feeling of the amniotic fluid literally dripping down my side which was again unbelievably surreal which is not what you want to feel because that point you're thinking that's fluid that should be safely packed away around my baby right now so I think it was just, yeah, just so unusual. But again, it was we had to do it. And the quicker it was done, in my opinion, the better.

And I just wanted to get through the pregnancy as quickly as possible after that. And Professor Basker, we see, I think you're performing something for the very first time in this series as well. You're trying to insert a plastic tube through a baby's mouth and into the airway passage whilst it's still in the womb. Let's hear the clip and then you can explain what we're listening to afterwards. Okay, so I'm just trying to find the nose.

There is the top lip. There's the bottom lip. We need to go inside there. And when we go inside there, we need to go north. So that's the tongue in front of us. We're just in front of the tongue. Why are we trying to just get to the roof of the mouth? Because of the angle of the head, we can go underneath the tongue. But what we're trying to do is flip the head up to front of the tongue. Why are we trying to just get to the roof of the mouth? Because of the angle of the head,

we can go underneath the tongue, but what we're trying to do is flip the head up to go over the tongue, okay? We can hear you. I mean, it is the most incredible thing to watch. My heart was in my mouth. You were performing the surgery there and you sound incredibly calm. You're also telling,

there's about 30 people in the room with you who are watching because it's happening for the first time, who you're talking it through to. Are you nervous when this is happening? It's a good point. I think I was a little bit more nervous in that particular operation than others. But most of the time we were nervous before and drained after. And during the procedure, it needs a high level of focus because, you know, you can't afford to make mistakes. You can't afford to get it wrong. The consequences are

quite drastic. And in that case, the procedure didn't work, did it? You can explain what happened. Yeah. So normally if a baby has a large neck tumour, then we do a very complex delivery, which involves certain risks to the mother, where the baby's born just to the level of the face, and where a specialist can put a tube down, a breathing tube down, and the baby can then breathe after it's born. What we were trying to do is to put it in before birth, so that the mother could avoid a general anaesthetic,

could avoid a very complex type of caesarean section called an exit procedure we attempted it and and the you know we we put telescopes down babies passages for other reasons and for other complications so we've done that before but this was a very specific circumstance where the baby had a large neck tumor and the neck tumor unfortunately precluded it but we learned two things. We learned very important lessons and I'm very confident we'll make it work next time so the mother can avoid some risks. And the other thing was too important

that both mum and the baby were very well because we just went back to our fallback option, something we've done 20, 30 times before to ensure that both mum and baby were well. And they are. You see that in the last episode. And your fallback option, I mean, that was before to ensure that both mum and baby were well. And they are. You see that in the last episode. And your fallback option, I mean, that was remarkable to watch. You performed a, yes, if you can explain.

Yeah, so that's why you need 30 people in the room. We have about three medical teams for the baby, three medical teams for the mother. We deliver the baby up to its face, so it's still connected to the placenta, so it's breathing through the placenta. And while it's breathing through the placenta, a specialist, a pediatric ear, nose and throat specialist will put a tube down the airway, a breathing tube like you would have when you have an operation, so that when the baby's born, the neck tumor doesn't choke the baby. So we can bypass the neck tumor to the breathing tube, make the

baby breathe well, and then deal with the growth around the neck subsequently. So it's a rare procedure, but it's one that St. George's has done more than any other hospital. And you've been working in this field for about 30 years. How many changes? You must have seen so many changes in that time. Yes, we have. But I have to be really, really honest. There's some pioneers, and my mentor was Professor Kipros Nikolaidis-Kings, who taught us a lot of what we did now. What we've really done is really refined the procedures we've attempted 20, 30 years ago to make it safer and more... Oh, yeah....treat a lung tumor in the baby, and 30 years ago, that would have been done

by opening the mother's tummy, doing a hole in the uterus, taking the baby out, opening the baby's chest, and then removing the tumor. And in the clip, you see us treat it in 30 seconds through a tiny needle. You know, a phenomenal change over 20-odd years. Absolutely.

And Susie, your triplets are now seven months old and you've got a nine-year-old too how's life oh really quiet you know all the time got my feet up no I mean it's wonderful um it really is and um I think you know the the three boys are an absolute joy and we feel extremely lucky um very tired a lot of the time but but very lucky and you know we genuinely feel we've got wonderful people like dr baski and his team to thank for that because you know this could have had a very very different outcome and we we really sort of we think that every day pretty much it's just particularly when you're just looking at three babies on a play mat it's quite um a lot to get around the head but it's it's wonderful uh yeah it is and it's wonderful and highly emotive tv to watch as well suzy and uh professor baski thank you so much for joining us

um it will be beginning on channel four on monday at 9 p.m and i be warned i did cry from the beginning to the very end of the entire program um now one of the few glimmers of light in this pandemic has been the chance to stop and appreciate the natural world you might be one of the people who's taken up gardening or bird watching or simply with less traffic and air pollution today is the day celebrate that with extra gusto because it's Earth Day. There are events going on around the world, including President Biden's Global Climate Summit later today. And there's a special focus on fixing some of the damage we humans have caused. The problem is it's not always easy to see the damage.

And that's especially true when it's going on under the sea. So to talk about that, as well as the beauty of the seas, is Christine Grossart, who is a key volunteer for the group Ghost Fishing UK. She's not only an expert diver and an environmental champion, she was also named on the Woman's Hour Our Planet Power List at the end of last year. Very good morning to you, Christine. You know, we've been wanting to speak to you for months and months, but you're always working, doing your day job in the middle of the ocean somewhere um you you were you were a North Sea Platforms diver medic so how do you mix oil gas and environmentalism? Good morning Anita straight in with that one yeah it's a tricky one um yeah I've had quite a few career changes in my life you know I left school at 16 to to work with horses which

is my main passion and then wanted to get into diving so so trained as a paramedic and that's taken me offshore it gives me a lot more money a lot more time and that gives me space to to do the things that I really love which is which is protecting the ocean and diving and seeing under the ocean and it's it's an interesting job you know um we don't just work for oil and gas industry we work for wind farms and in the main our vessel is uh focused on fixing things you know so if there's a gas leak or if there's a problem if there's a a risk of a break in containment with oil or anything like that we go out there and fix it and stop it happening so um but i mean as a medic i'm there to look after the divers make sure they're

fit and healthy and they will go down and do the the engineering work and and fixing all the stuff and yeah they're working super deep you know sort of 100 150 meters something like that um so it's a really satisfying job so i sort of wriggle around it by saying well i'm a medic i don't i don't pull any oil out the ground which i don't um but actually what it's done is given me a very balanced view of the industry. I get to see things that not a lot of people see and I get to see what really goes on out there. And I think it's safe to say it's not as bad as you think, that the industry is really, really on it right now. I'm very environmentally aware. And I would say it's pretty safe to say that I probably use less, less disposable plastics when I'm offshore than I do when I'm at home. You know, so it's it's yeah, it's a really interesting industry to work in I love it quite a career change working

from with horses to diving and it was your parents that both they both dived as well didn't they yeah so it was funny my mother and I had a conversation um when I was about 14 she took me to the local diving club on a Wednesday night up in Bristol and she said look you have chosen the two most expensive sports going horses and diving you've got to pick one you know because she was a single parent she's like yeah this is costing me an arm and a leg and I said well I wanted to be a jockey that's what I always wanted to do and I ended up doing that but you've got to start young um so I thought well diving can go on the back burner you know so I didn't really start diving and actually cave diving is how I got into it when I was sort of 20 21 um so a bit of a late late comer to to diving proper but you

know it's it's something that's always been there that I knew I would always want to do and yeah it's gone crazy now Christine you might have to do a bit of a sales job here because we're very proud of our little island and we're happy to talk about our countryside and our trees and our plants and our flora and fauna. But when we think about our sea, we often say, oh, it's cold, brown and murky. What are they wrong? No. OK, that's that then. No, I mean, I'm being a bit. No. So the problem with the UK is, you know, we're very tide dependent.

We're very weather dependent. Everyone who does any kind of outdoor activity in the uk will know that it's all to do with the weather we're an island we get hit from all angles you know with with with currents and weather and wind and we get weather from other countries that come over and hit us so um it's like everything you know um if you if you want to dive somewhere in egypt or somewhere like that you will get out every single day, guaranteed. That's just not the case in the UK. So you just have to pick your battles here. And when you do, and when it goes well, it's stunning. Absolutely stunning. I came off my vessel last week, drove down from Aberdeen, because flights, I mean, forget it, you know, what flights?

Drove down from Aberdeen, stopped off with a friend of mine up near Imath, sort of the England Scotland border and just jumped in the sea I mean eight ten meters visibility life everywhere it was just beautiful it was seven degrees it was freezing but I didn't want to get out and it was absolutely stunning we have got huge beautiful diversity around the UK coast and I just don't think people realize that it's there you know because you do you do. You look out and you think, oh, that looks absolutely awful. But it's all there. And UK diving, I say, could be some of the best in the world.

You just have to pick your day. And you've got a very beautiful picture of a seal behind you. That's definitely something we have across the UK. I mean, that was taken in the UK by a friend of mine called Kirsty Andrews, award-winning photographer. Yeah, I mean, that was in the UK. Very shallow, perfectly achievable dive. And we can't see what's under the sea because of the murkiness, but also what we also don't know is the damage we're doing.

I mean, we can see what's happening on land, but tell us what's happening. What are the problems that are being caused by fishing nets in particular? Yeah, I mean, so that's what our charity is primarily invested in. We focus very tightly on lost fishing gear. And I emphasize lost, you know, fishing gear is expensive. It's, you know, fishermen don't lose it deliberately. But it happens. It's an unfortunate consequence of the fishing industry that they do lose stuff. Now, they will try and get it back. But if they can't, it'll often end up snagged on a wreck or snagged on a reef and they just can't get it back um but if they can't it'll often end up snagged on a wreck or snagged on a reef and they just they just can't get it back and the problem is that fishing gear will stay there indefinitely and continue to catch indefinitely and of course nobody's able to pull the catch in nobody's able to monitor it so so what we do as scuba divers is first of all we see it um and the most important thing is you say something you know i think sometimes we come a bit

blind to it you know you see fishing gear on a wreck and you just accept that you see fishing gear on a wreck what we're trying to do is encourage divers to tell us tell us where they saw it tell us what they saw if they've got a camera great take a picture of it and what we can go out and do is survey it see what it is and then make a plan to recover it and we we bring it back we use big sort of balloons lift bags to raise it to the surface and um and we recycle it you know so we've we've gone from being a group of mates doing this because we love the ocean to to a big charity you know we've got over 60 divers on our books and that we've trained ourselves and we've got a great big long waiting list and we're all volunteers you know is it dangerous it can be yeah yeah we're extremely picky we get a lot of people a lot of divers wanting to join

and help out but we are very picky because without putting a finer point on it if if one of those lift bags goes rocketing to the surface you cannot stop it and if you're attached to it you can kill you so so you know it is dangerous and course, as soon as you touch these nets, you know, they've got silt and all sorts, you know, all over them, the visibility goes to absolutely zero. Yeah. So what does the fishing industry make of what you're doing? Are they on side or do they feel like you're finger pointing a little bit? No, I mean, we've never pointed the finger and we've made that very clear.

Some fishing vessels have stuck their neck out and come to us and said, we've lost a string of creel pots that we can't get back. Do you think you can? I said, absolutely. And we've gone out, pulled them back in. They've brought their boat out so they can haul the pots back in. And they've been super happy, you know.

And the thing is, they've tried to give us money and we're like, look, you know, we're not at work. We're volunteers. We can't do that, you know. A pint maybe, but... A woman after my own heart. Yeah, you can buy us a drink can't do that you know um a pint maybe but but woman after my own heart yeah you can buy it we're always good for a pint no we're just happy to do it because those those pots would have continued to catch the fishermen couldn't get them back so for us it's a win-win situation and i think that's that's where it becomes most productive

lots of listeners are getting in touch saying what the changes they've made in their own life to try and be a bit more eco to try and help the planet you know lots of people saying that they now don't buy milk in plastic bottles they're getting glass bottles what what what what can we do to let us make us feel like we have a bit of power in this yeah i mean this is an interesting one because i was thinking about this and the problem is if you want to go to sort of shampoo which i do i mean you go to shampoo bars and conditioner bars and make all these sort of fairly big changes it hits you in the wallet plastic is cheap you know it's cheap it's disposable there's there's there's infinite amounts of it um so as soon as you start to make changes it is expensive so so what i've been thinking about is ways that you can make

changes without it it hitting you in the wallet you know things like that um you. You know, the obvious one, I think it was mentioned earlier, is the single-use carrier bags. I mean, that's a no-brainer. Once you've got a bag for life, that's it. You know, that's all you need. I've got loads of them. So that's a good one. You know, the Good Fish Guide, you know,

the Marine Conservation Society Good Fish Guide is a really good one. And it's a decent read as well. You look through it and you realise what you've been eating that's not caught very sustainably at all. So that's a good one. That's free. You can get that from the Marine Conservation Society. Totally free. So you can make informed choices. Carry your own fork, knife to carry a little picnic load with you. You know, I think road food is the enemy. It all comes in plastic with plastic forks. And you're not given any choice in the matter. If you want to go and buy loose or loose stuff in it while you're on the motorway or the supermarket you've got no

choice yeah so take your own cutlery with you and and you know you can do it that way great great tips christine thank you so much fascinating world that you're in and thank you for joining us on woman's hour to tell us all about it uh that's christine uh if you want to find out more about some of the other women on our woman's hour, our Planet Power List 2020, then you can do that on the Women's Hour website or by searching on BBC Sounds. That's all for today's Women's Hour. Join us again next time. Hello, Women's Hour listeners. I'm Dr Michael Moseley. And just before you go, I want to tell you about just one thing you can do for your overall health and well-being. I'm on a mission for my new BBC Radio 4 podcast, Just One Thing,

to unearth the simple and often surprising things you can do for your brain and body. From how doing press-ups can boost your brain function, to how the power of your breathing can change the way you think and feel. So please subscribe to Just One Thing on BBC Sounds for the one small thing you can do every episode to improve your health in a number of unexpected ways. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.