Woman's Hour - Kyla Harris, Womb transplants, Women in farming, Alev Scott

Episode Date: February 25, 2026

A baby boy has become the first to be born in the UK to a mother with a womb transplant from a deceased donor. Grace Bell, who is in her 30s, delivered her baby boy, Hugo, in December. Clare McDonnell is joined by transplant surgeon Isabel Quiroga who completed the transplant in collaboration with Professor Richard Smith and colleagues at Oxford University Hospital and Imperial College, London, and established the first uterus transplant programme in the UK.Today is the day Season 2 of the TV series We Might Regret This is released. Its creator and star, Kyla Harris, discusses how she has drawn on her experiences as a disabled person to create this funny and unflinching look at life with disability. The first results from the University of Exeter's Women in Farming health and wellbeing study are in, and they paint a concerning picture of the wellbeing of women in farming across the UK.Alev Scott’s latest book, Cash Cow, investigates the global fertility industry, exploring how much the female body is being commodified, and its impact on women across the world. Who should make money from the maternal body - only the women themselves, anyone or no one? Going undercover, she explores the breast milk black market, the trade in harvesting eggs, and the women who are surrogates for others. Presenter: Clare McDonnell Producer: Kirsty Starkey

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. This is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline for the show? From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life.

And all the bizarre ways people are using. the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm Nula McGovern and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. And while you're here, I wanted to let you know that the Woman's Hour Guide to Life is back. You might have listened to some of the episodes from the first series, including ambition without burnout, or turning aging into your superpower. Well, we've got six new episodes for you over the coming weeks that will give you practical tips. tips on issues like self-promotion without feeling awkward, caring for aging parents, navigating

infertility with family and friends, and also how to love your face, whatever your age. I'm really excited about this series of the Woman's Hour Guide to Life, so I really hope you'll join us. You will find the episodes in the Woman's Hour podcast feed on Sundays. It's only on BBC Sounds. But now, back to today's Woman's Hour. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. News of a groundbreaking medical first this week, the birth of a beautiful, healthy baby boy called Hugo, who has become the first child in the UK to be born using a womb transplanted from a dead donor.

We will hear from the transplant surgeon and joint team leader shortly. We're also down on the farm this morning. We're returning to a dairy farm in East Devon. You may remember Anita hosted a Woman's Hour special from their last. year where we announced the launch of a new study looking into the health and well-being of women in farming. Well, the first results are in and one of the findings is this. Female farmers say their mental health suffers when they feel they aren't being included in decision-making. Farming is, of course, still a majority male profession.

So tell me this morning, if you often find yourself as the only woman in the room at work, how do you make yourself heard, how do you make yourself seen? what techniques have you developed? Share them with me this morning, especially if you work in farming as well. The text is 84844. Excuse me, text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media, we are at BBC Woman's Hour,

and you can email us through our website. Also, when journalist Aleph Scott was breastfeeding her baby, she started looking into donating her own breast milk and at those who might sell it. This opened her up to all. whole world of the commodification of women's bodies, their milk, their eggs, their wombs. And she's put it all in a fascinating new book. Alev is going to be joining me in the studio.

And the superb second series of We Might Regret This is out today. A funny and unflinching look at Life with Disability, created by and starring tetraplegic actor and writer Kyla Harris. We'll join us live on the program this morning. So all to come on Women's Hour. in the next hour. But let's start with this. A baby boy has become the first to be born in the UK

to a mother with a womb transplant from a deceased donor. Grace Bell, who is in her 30s, delivered her baby boy, Hugo, weighing just over three kilos in December. Now, Grace was born herself with Mayor Rakitansky Kusterhauser or M.RKH syndrome.

And that affects one in every 5,000 women in the UK. It's a rare condition resulting in an underdeveloped or missing womb. She was told as a teenager that she would be unable to carry a child. But she received that womb transplant in 2024. Let's hear from Grace now. She spoke to BBC News. Out of the blue, I got the phone call to say, was I still interested in which it was at a certain point

that means Steve were actually going down the surrogacy route. So it was perfect timing for us. when they said we found you a match. That brought a lot of different emotions with it. We were hopefully finally going to have a little baby. But of course, the sadness that comes with the deceased donor transplant, of course that means that someone, another lady, would have asked away. Words can't explain.

I cannot express how amazing that really is, that gift that they think. given to me and that family. We think of them every day, especially when I look at little Hugo. Grace Bell there, the new mother and recipient of that womb transplant from a deceased donor. Well, tell us more about this fascinating journey. Delighted to say, we're joined by transplant surgeon,

Isabel Kiroga, who completed the transplant in collaboration with Professor Richard Smith and colleagues at Oxford University Hospital and Imperial College London, who established the first uterus transplant program in the UK. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Good morning.

It's an incredible day to talk to you, and this is an incredible story. We last heard from you early in 2025 when you were talking about the first birth from a live donor in the UK. This is a deceased donor. Talk to us about your feelings, first of all. This is successful. There is a little boy now out there in the world who's been born, thanks to your ex-execis. and your team's expertise? Oh, well, it's been a magnificent journey,

and we're full of joy and pride of having managed this. It's been, for some in the team, certainly for Richard Smith, has been more than 25 years of research and trying to get us over the line. I've been involved for about 12 years, and again, I've grown old just trying to get to come to this point. but it has it is tremendous it's a milestone for patients that have been either born without a uterus with m arch or that have lost it due to cancer or bleeding or other benign conditions that are preventing them from from carry their own child so to be able to to have a child when you

don't have a living donor maybe that that is very very important for many women so the difference obviously this was a deceased donor. I mean, how difficult was that for your team? Because this was a first. So we had done deceased donors before. This was our third. However, this is the first birth resulting from this. So you can imagine every time that you start an operation of this nature and this magnitude,

we're just full of trepidation and hope, of course, for our patient, just hope that everything goes well. This is an operation that we know carries a high failure risk. Internationally, there's one in four chances that the uterus will be lost very early on. So just to have this success thing with later on, a healthy baby is just phenomenal. And we're full of hope. This is, of course, a research project. We have a clinical trial in which we need to transplant 10 women.

and we hope to have many other babies before it can go on to a more mainstream. I want to take you back to 2024 to the actual procedure, the actual operation. It took 10 hours. I mean, to be in the operating theatre for that long, it sounds like quite a grueling process. Well, you know, I don't, Claire, I don't know whether this one took 10 hours. I know that it's a long operation. It comes to a point that you don't know how many hours you've been operating. But when you're totally in the zone,

so you're just concentrating, focusing on a good outcome. And I have to say, I'm incredibly privileged to work with a fantastic amount of colleagues and very, very experienced surgeons, nurses and ecesthetists. So it's just all about your team, having surround ourselves with a fantastic bunch of professionals. As you say, this procedure had been done before and had been successful,

but this was the first successful pregnancy and birth. So just a question on that. Is IVF a necessity, as is happened in this case, or is a natural pregnancy possible in this circumstance? That's an excellent question. First of all, I think I need to highlight the fact that the uterus is the only organ that is transplanted, so we don't transplant the donor ovaries. So therefore there's no chance that any future offspring,

would be related to the donor. But because it's such a novel procedure, it's so complex, we need to make sure that the woman is fertile or they are able to produce their own embryos. So everybody that has a uterus transplant, not only in the UK, but all across the world, always have pre-made good quality embryos. And then all the conception is through IBF, yes.

And once you've done that, And the IVF, the embryo was implanted. I mean, is it any different to a usual pregnancy? Or is there more medication, more monitoring? How did the rest of the pregnancy play out? So transplant or transplant recipients have to have anti-rejection medication. That is very important. And with that, they also have to take many other tablets.

But this pregnancy, we know, is high risk. many, many, thousands of babies have already been born with women that have received other life-saving transplants. And so we know that these drugs are safe during pregnancy, but we know that this is a high risk pregnancy that has to be very closely monitored and that is done by colleagues at Imperial College. And we've got Brini Jones and Charlie Freeze. There are excellent colleagues that are very closely managing these pregnancies.

We heard Grace mention the donor earlier. And I want to talk to you about, because many people might not know that this is a possible thing, you know, an organ to donate. But what do we know about the donor in this case? Well, of course, as you can understand, I can't give you much information. But she was a young woman that die in very tragic circumstances. And due to her generosity and that of her parents, she donated another five organs, five lifesaving organs. So she's given life to so many. And she was also, her parents, obviously, to get the donation of the uterus is not covered by the law.

It's a special consent. And their parents want, her parents wanted her to offer that chance of motherhood to another woman. And they were delighted to donate her organ. I don't know whether you read the family's. statement in which they are so proud that this baby has been born. So we are extremely grateful. The process of donating a womb then, if anybody's listening to this and thinking, actually, that is something I hadn't thought about before I hadn't considered. Does it naturally come under the umbrella that if you say you want to be an organ donor, that is something that will be

considered? No, that's not. This is part of a clinical trial. And that is, It has a special consent. It's not part of the normal organ donation registry. But as you know, the law has recently changed, and I think it's very important to highlight that it is important to talk to your family to express what you want in the event of your death. And many people, many millions of people have registered to donate their organs, the life-saving organs on event of dying.

But there is also worth mentioning that it's over 8,000 people, 8,000 people today that are waiting for a life-saving transplant. And unfortunately, many will die without having the opportunity because there's not enough organ donors. The donation is an important, very important part of our health. Absolutely. An incredible accomplishment for you and your team, an incredible scientific feat. On a human level, though, as you say, you've worked on this for a very long time. What have you taken from this? Well, it's hugely sobering, as you know,

just disease donation is one of those things, and especially if you've ever lost somebody. And I have, my family had the loss of a brother very young, and we understand that loss, and it will always be, it will never be forgotten. But to have this joy, having the opportunity of save lives, of gift, create new life as it was in this case, it's just phenomenal. So we wish to, in the future, to be able to have many other women that to this day don't have that opportunity of carrying

their own child as Grace has, but we hope that this will become a reality in not too long a future, distant future events. Thank you so much for joining us on Women's Hour this morning. That is a transplant surgeon, Isabel Caroga, who completed. the transplant in collaboration with Professor Richard Smith and colleagues at Oxford University Hospital and Imperial College London. Thank you so much for joining us. Now, let's talk about TV lovers.

If you are a TV lover, you are in for a treat as today is the day, season two of the series, the TV series, we might regret this, gets released. In the first season, rather, we saw the life. from relationships of Freya, a tetraplegic artist in her 30s who moved to London to be with her older partner, Abbey. Freya, who uses a wheelchair, is followed by quite the entourage, her chaotic best friend Joe and her clumsy, intrusive personal assistant Ty, and its creator in star Kyla Harris has drawn on her experiences as a disabled person to create this funny and unflinching

look at life with disability. Delighted to say, Kyla, uh, joins us now. Welcome to Women's Al-Kyla. Thank you so much, Claire. It's feeling quite intimidating really after that fantastic conversation that you just had. I was gripped. I mean, it is. It's incredible, isn't it?

And the dedication of these medics and they dedicate their lives to it. And then we read about it in a headline and we do an interview, but the backstory is always absolutely fascinating. As is yours, Kyla. Let's start from the beginning. What pushed you to create

we might regret this. So my best friend Lee Getty is the co-writer and co-creator of We Might Regret This and we met in film school about 20 years ago, yeek, aging myself. And we just,

we have such an incredible friendship and our kind of platonic romance really inspired this series. Which is beautifully portrayed in your friendships in the actual comedy itself, comedy drama, should I say. Tell us your story then, because it's absolutely fascinating. I'm saying backstory again, but the point you started at and you came to this incredible creative moment in your life

about how you became disabled. So I was 15 and I had an accident and I had never, what I thought, was I'd never known someone who was disabled before my accident. But I think I had it later, I've come to realize that I've just had a very narrow view of what it meant to be disabled. And I think part of the series, what we're trying to do is also look at how we redefine disability, how we reframe it. Disability has not had the best branding and marketing PR people that we would like. And now it's really time to change that. And I think, so I require 24-hour care, and so does the character Freya in the series.

And Lee was my friend, and we were going to be going to travel to the UK together. And I said, look, would you be up for doing my care in exchange for me buying you a plane ticket? And she said, I'll have to think about it. Five minutes later, she came back and said yes. and she instantly became my personal care assistant. And we traveled through Europe together with her doing my personal care and got up to obviously loads of mischief. We were in our early 20s. And we experienced so many incredible moments of intimacy.

And it really changed our friendship. And it made it, I believe, so much stronger. And I think that's the inspiration for the series is that people, who are disabled are often portrayed as being inspirations or objects of tragedy. And we were looking at how can we find a disabled person to create this character where people see a disabled person with more nuance. Well, you certainly started series one with the bang quite literally to try and turn that on its head because there's a sex scene with.

with Freya and her partner. Did you think what the hell this is a statement of intent? Let's go for it. Absolutely. I think disabled people are so often viewed as being as sexual. And it was really important for us to say, like, look, it's totally, you can live a totally normal life as a disabled person, an exciting life. And you can have a sex life and you can fall in love and you can have incredible relationships. relationships and everything else that everyone has in life.

I think a lot of people are afraid of disability or becoming disabled because they think that will lead to isolation or lack of connection, a lack of opportunity. And in some ways, there are those things. But it can also be a way of creating more connection, more opportunity. And that's what we found. I'm interested to talk a little bit about, you know, through the character of Ty, who's Freya's personal assistant, and that intrusion, she immediately asked Freya,

oh, can you have sex with your partner? You found that personally, didn't you, that there is a line that people feel they can cross quite regularly with people with a disability? Yes, absolutely. I will be staying on the side of the road, waiting for a friend, just on my phone, doing my thing, and someone will come up to me. and say, what happened to you? What's wrong with you? And the third question is usually, can you have sex? Wow. And I think people feel very entitled to say anything that they want

to a disabled person. And I know a lot of the time it's based on curiosity, but these are our stories to own. You know, what we, you know, what happened to me is my story to own. because you wouldn't dream of walking up to somebody that you'd never met in the street and asking them such personal questions, would you? Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. I want to also talk then about grief

because this is one of the topics that is highlighted. The relationship between Freya and her partner, he's older, he's able-bodied, he's got a complex family life behind him, which unraveled years before by the sudden death of his eldest son. So why explore the long-term effects of grief as part of the storyline and how do both of those characters kind of overlap in that sense?

I absolutely love that question, Claire. And I would also just want to say, I really encourage you to use the term non-disabled rather than able-bodied. For instance, I have a very able and capable body in so many ways, but I'm still disabled. And also, like, I commend you as well for taking that really well in me saying that. Not at all. Not at all. Not at all. Absolutely. Of course I am. I think so many people are afraid of quote unquote making a mistake when it comes to disability. And I really encourage people

to make mistakes because it starts conversations. Yeah. So the grief that those, in a way, she suffered and he suffered, why did you want to get into that? Well, on paper, Abe and Freya aren't a typical match. And I think that a lot of people don't see grief as a positive thing, but I think it can create connection and understanding and empathy. And I think that's what's happened with Abe and Freya. They've both experienced grief in very different ways. Abe lost a child and Freya is going through the process as we all constantly.

There's never an end to grief. There's always a beginning, but there's never an end to grief. And that's what connects these two characters. I wanted to take that back, actually, to when you were in hospital after you had your accident. And the surgeon came in and said, can you just tell everybody what he said to you? Yeah, of course. Am I allowed to say rude words? Probably not.

Probably not. No, but we can guess. Yeah. Okay. So I called this doctor. I labeled him something after this because he came in and it was almost like I was in, it felt like I was in a film or a TV series and he almost said it with such dramatic effect to my mom and I. He said, you will never walk again. And I heard that tragedy and that trauma in his voice. And I automatically. My response to that was internally, well, then I don't want to live. That's tough. Yeah.

And how long did it take you to turn that around? I mean, it must have been devastating anyway and then to have that heaped on top. Yeah, I think that I had really associated being able to use my hands and being able to use my legs with life. And that I suppose about 15 years after my accident, I'd just. just I just started living every single day. I just kept going. And it's just become an accumulation of days up until now that brings me here. But I suppose about 10 years ago, I kind of thought, well, why, I reflected on why I felt that when I heard that news. And I realized it was because of the media that I'd ingested around disability being seen as,

either as a fate worse than death. And I really wanted to turn that around so that someone who is disabled or becomes disabled, a doctor will come to them and say, look, your life might not be what you expected it to be, but it's going to be magnificent. And how that would have changed my outlook, if that had happened to me. And I think that's also about the series is like all of these care. are experiencing a life that they didn't think would happen. And that's so illuminating the parallels that are drawn and how we can all respond to whatever fate throws our way differently. But you're absolutely right.

You think that's important that there's more education for people in the medical profession to say how you frame this person's outcomes going forward is key. Absolutely. Absolutely. You get a little bit political in there as well. I mean, it's all, life's political, isn't it? But I mean, talking about autonomy and disability benefits as well and how when your character, if she marries her partner,

she will lose part of her benefits as well. Is it important for you to go there, to get those messages out there, to educate in a way and have a view? I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not opinionated at all. It's not preachy, but it's important, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

And I think that's it. It's like I'm not here to preach. And the series isn't here to preach. It's about looking at these kind of difficult subjects through a lens of humor. But underneath it, everything is political. Everything we do is political. Every decision we make, whether we like it or not. I always thought I wasn't political.

And then someone said, do you feel, do you believe in abortion? And I went, yes, I do believe that we should have the right to abortion. And he was like, and then this person said to me, well, then you're political. So any view and opinion we have is political. What was that question again, Claire? Because I've just gone into. Well, it was about the benefits about how her status and her income and the autonomy of disabled people is key. It's often talked about, but you're putting it in a drama.

Yeah, brilliant. Thank you for repeating that because it is such a fantastic question. So I myself as a disabled person, if I was to get married or to, to even live with my partner, most of my benefits would be cut, the benefits that I rely on to survive, either my care benefits or the, well, I have personal independent payments plan that is not cut because that's not means tested. But what's assumed is that when you combine households, that your partner is going to pay for you. And it's, so in the UK, if you have more than 23,000 pounds worth of savings, you lose all of your benefits when you get married or live with a

partner. When I lived with my partner at one point in the UK, I only had a third of my care benefits because they were seen to be able to do the laundry and be able to, you know, make every meal. But that's not what I wanted. I mean, I'm going to need the same level of care, regardless of whether I'm in a relationship or not. But so we call this. the marriage penalty for disabled people. And so many people in the UK don't know about it. And a lot of people say to me, oh my gosh, I feel so ignorant. I can't believe I didn't know about that. But it's because a lot of people have assumed that disabled people don't get married or aren't in relationships or want to live with their partners. But this is happening in Canada. This is

happening in the US. This is in France. This is in so many countries around the world. And it's just not talked about. It's been absolutely fascinating. And the series, is brilliant, it's funny, it's thought-provoking, and you are incredibly charismatic on screen, Kyla. I would stop, no, really. It's a great watch. It really is. Thank you so much for joining us, and good luck with season two.

Lovely to have you on the programme. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Kyla Harris there, season two of we might regret this starts. Tonight, 10 o'clock, BBC 2, and of course, if you have been affected by anything you've heard in our discussion, then you can go to BBC Action Line. where you will find links to support. This is not the future we were promised.

Like, how about that for a tagline for the show? From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world. This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life. and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

We're going to talk about women in farming in a moment. Just to say, I have been asking you how you found your voice in the workplace. If you were on a majority male situation, this is one of the findings of research we're about to talk about why women in farming can often feel a little bit all at sea or stressed is that they're overlooked sometimes in decision-making processes. So how have you found your way? How have you found your voice in the workplace when it comes to being heard

if it's majority male dominated? This is Alex in London. I often facilitate large meetings dominated by men I've just met. I ask a question as soon as I enter so that my voice is heard and acknowledged. Will there be any refreshments also shows? I'm not there to make the tea. Brilliant. I find sharing from the middle of the board table rather than the head puts me in the thick of it

and harder to ignore. Will there be any refreshments? We're all taking that with us into Wednesday, Alex. Thank you very much. And this, flower farming is an aspect of farming that is often invisible in debates about farming. It's one of the few industries that are led by women. It's a growing sector that is working to grow flowers

in a sustainable way that benefits the environment. In my experience, it's a hugely supportive sector. So there's one sector. Thank you for that. That isn't necessarily male-dominated. But let me know your techniques for getting your voice heard in a male-dominated work set up. 84844 on the text. So let's talk about women in farming now. Last May, Anita hosted a

Woman's Our Special episode dedicated to women in farming from Lorna Burgess Farm in East Devon. I've got my walking boots on. It's gloriously sunny. Morning cows. Two sheepdog to my right, calves to my left. And is that Lorna in front of me? Good morning. Hi. Lovely to see you. Where am I? Where have I arrived to? What's going on here? So this is our milking parlour. We've got 20 cows that have just come in for morning milking. On the left side and on the right side, those cows are just finishing and they're going to be going back out to grazing any minute now. You can hear the pumps. Yes. There we go. And it's what, just after 7 o'clock right now, what time have you been up since?

So we start at 6 o'clock in the morning. It takes about 2 hours in the morning to get, there's just over 200 cows in milk at the moment. So it's about 2 hours to get milking done. Now, during that program, we announced the launch of a new study by the University of Exeter, looking into the health and well-being of women in farming. The research is being undertaken. Over a three-year period, the preliminary results have just been released, and they paint a concerning picture with women reporting a lower average mental well-being score and higher levels of stress and poor sleep quality. Now, some of the respondents cited isolation.

A lack of support, bureaucracy and work-life balance, has major factors in rising stress levels. Well, delighted to say we can talk now to Dr Rebecca Wheeler, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Rural Policy Research at the University of Exeter. And you just heard a dairy farmer in East Devon, Lorna Burge. Welcome back to Women's Hour. Hello, both.

Hi, thanks for having us on. Brilliant to have you. Lorna, let's start with you. Put us in the picture. Describe your morning so far to us. What have you been up to? It's slightly chaotic. We've got the morning milk and done.

We're carving at the minute, so we're really busy. There's lots of specially carved cows to look after. And then we've got feeding, and we've got just a small number that's been able to go out and start grazing, because we've had so much wet weather that it's impacted on how wet the fields are for the cows. So lots of those kind of outdoor jobs to do, and then it's to come back. and all be some of the household jobs as well. Oh, wow, never ends. Listen, Laura, I'm just going to ask you.

I'm going to go to Rebecca, but please, would you just take your headphones off a second because you're sounding a little bit muffled? So Rebecca, here's a question to you. Really fascinating research, and now we have the first results of it. So tell us why. What were women in farming telling you

about why they were experienced higher levels of stress? Well, I suppose the first thing to say is, obviously, on an individual level, it's going to vary. Everyone's experiences. are different and you know some of those experiences will be really good as well but you know as our findings highlighted it's quite concerning the numbers who are struggling and I think you know some of that as you said is you know there's there's lots of stresses we know farming is a stressful occupation and that's the same for men as well as women people told us you know they felt stressed by things

like red tape succession issues the weather which is particularly relevant recently. But also we found that some of the most significant predictors of poor well-being for women were things like isolation and loneliness, kind of workload, work-life balance, so having a lot of long working hours, relationships with others as well, was a kind of predictor of poor well-being, if that goes wrong. So it's kind of those personal factors can really kind of tip the balance. And women on farms, we've got to remember that they're very intertwined in terms of kind of it's a place of work, it's a place of home, it's a place of family. And often, you know, women are the ones who are juggling lots of different tasks, doing

lots of different things. And on the whole, they're great at that, you know, and they find that fulfilling and that's a really great thing to be doing. But when something goes wrong, when, when, you know, there is something that tips the balance, then actually that can be really stressful. And, you know, we've heard women talk a lot about how they feel like they're the ones that need to hold it together for the family, for the farm, for the business. And actually that can make it quite difficult to make time for yourself and kind of form the social connections, which are really important. Let's put some of that back to Lorna. Does that ring any bells, Lorna, all of the above?

Yeah, it can be challenging. And I think particular times of year as well, you know, every farm's going to have a particular time to a year where it's really busy, regardless of the food you're producing, so whether that's harvesting, whether it's, for us, it's carving season. You know, you're always going to have this really intense periods of work, but you've still got everything else, like family life, relationships, etc.,

going on in the background as well. And so it's kind of, you know, you're constantly juggling everything, really, sometimes it feels like. Does it help that you are in a partnership of running the farm with your husband? Or do you feel that, you know, once you go into the home, that the burden still falls on you? Or are you good at sharing all of that? We are very good at sharing between each other. So we both got quite different skill sets. So from a business, point of view, we can split up the day-to-day business roles and responsibilities between us. And then, you know, with regards to home life as well, again, it is one of those things. I took our girls to their rugby practice last night and I came home and dinner was cooked and ready.

So, you know, again, it's that kind of just communicating really well to each other, what's going on, having a bit of plan, make sure everybody's aware of, you know, other obligations that we've both got. and, you know, just sharing that responsibility. Do you find, because getting outside of farming as well and having that connection, you have children, so you automatically plug into the school and other parents and all of that. But, you know, loneliness was a big part of this. Do you understand how you can end up down that path as a woman in farming? Yeah, and again, when you're so busy day to day,

it's quite easy to kind of slip into that, not seeing other people routine. and although you can speak to people on the phone, having that face-to-face contact is really important as well. And it could be that, you know, it's just getting you off farm just for, you know, 15, 20 minutes and you see somebody and you can just have a quick chat, and it helps you to switch off from maybe different things that you're dealing with back on the farm as well. I just want to get that from face-to-face-face, rather than just being on a phone or on a text message. Yeah.

It's that face-to-face contact is really important. Rebecca, just to go back to you, we were mentioning this earlier in your research, women who are excluded from decision making on farms. They said that was a major factor in feeling lonely and left out. Just tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, so that was a really interesting finding. So we asked women what level of decision making responsibility they had on the farm. and actually most did have some decision-making say, either on their own or jointly with others.

But there were a kind of significant minority, if you like, who didn't. And then we also asked people how satisfied they were with that level of decision-making. And actually the most satisfied were those who had joint decision-making, which kind of makes sense because you're sharing the load with someone, but you still feel like you've got to say in the business. And I think that's really crucial. I think for those women who maybe don't feel like they listen to in farm business, perhaps their husband or their husband's family,

if it's their farm, maybe they make decisions without consulting for women. And that can be really isolating because it's their home, it's their business, and there was a very clear link in our findings between not being satisfied with that decision-making. and feeling lonely and feeling isolated. And then that then leads on to kind of poor matter well-being. Laura, I guess it sounds like you have that balance on your farm in your relationship as well. But, you know, you are a minority in the farming industry. Women are a minority in this business at the moment.

How is it in the wider world? Do you still have to fight to get your voice heard? I personally don't think I do. I'm quite good, a bit like a few other people that, you know, you can enter a room and you can have a, you're happy to spark a conversation with somebody and, you know, get involved in discussions or whatever's going on. But I do know of people who don't feel like they have that confidence to do it. I would prefer to go to a meeting with another person or know they're going to meet a particular person when they get there because they don't want to feel like they're there on their own and they're, they've, perhaps haven't got that confidence to start a conversation with a stranger at a meeting. So I think it does depend on the individual a little bit as well of, you know, what their

confidence is in those situations. And Rebecca, this is just the first tranche of research. But I guess what you will do with it may be will lead to helping women like that, that that Lorna's just described, the women who are in a bit of a loss, who feel a little bit all at sea. Is that the idea? So you can kind of put some kind of. a structure in place that will help improve women's situation in farming.

Absolutely. I mean, that's the most important aim in my view of the whole research project. And that's why our partners, the Farm Community Network, FSCN, who are a support charity, supporting farmers and farming families. And they're partners with the research, they lead it. And everything that we do is with them, with a view to at the end of it, saying, okay, well, you know, what do women themselves want in terms of support, in terms of social opportunities, both to kind of address any well-being challenges or health challenges they might

be experiencing, but also to kind of prevent them in the first place and actually ensure that they're feeling really positive and flourishing. So yes, the next stages of the research is very much about asking women what they want, finding out a little bit more detail and looking in depth their experiences that have been highlighted in the survey and then shaping kind of recommendations for how support might be improved, both in terms of the work that FCM do, but also others in the agricultural sector and others in the health sector as well. And of course, I mean, you have to mention women's bodies,

the quite specific challenges that women face physical work whilst experiencing periods, menopoles and symptoms, pregnancy breastfeeding. Lorna, how hard was it to cope with a very physical job when you could be going through any one of those? Well, when we had our children, I wasn't farming full-time. I was only part-time, which was probably a bit of a blessing looking back. But there's definitely occasions where, you know, I do get problems like with my lower back and it can be quite painful and uncomfortable.

That then rolls into you perhaps not sleeping very much. well because you're in discomfort, which has that knock on effect that the next day you're tireder when you're then trying to do your daily work. And, you know, it's, it can be quite challenging and you're always thinking, I've got lots of other things to be doing. I don't think I've really got time to go and see anybody about this. And so it's, you know, it kind of gets to a point where, you know, you think I probably should have gone a long time ago, but I'm actually going to go now because it's got to that certain point of needing to actually talk. to a professional about your own health.

So probably, you know, you are more reluctant to pick up the phone and make an appointment sooner rather than later because you're just thinking, well, I've got other things I need to be doing. Let's end on a positive then. Why do you love it? And why would you encourage it? It might be people listening to this now thinking I've always fancied that as a career. Why should they consider it?

I love being outdoors. I love the fact that I can work with my husband. We get on really well together. as a working couple. I love the fact that the children can get involved when they want to. They don't always want to. They've got other commitments.

But when they want to come out and be and get involved and be active on the farm, it's really nice. And you get to see the changes of the seasons. And you get to work with lots of interesting other people as well. I love working with our cows. I know them all individually, which sometimes surprises people that I can pick out each individual animal. and I know certain personality traits that they have.

But it is just nice having that connection with nature and having the outdoor space to clear your head as well. Well, we all know how good that is for us in this modern day and age. Thank you so much for coming back on Woman Zauer. We will check back in with you when the second trance of research comes out. Lorna, thank you. Thanks so much for joining us. We'll let you get back to your very busy day job.

And that's Lorna Burge, dairy farmer from East Devon. And you heard as well there, Dr. Rebecca Wheeler. Thank you, Dr. Wheeler, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Rural Policy Research at the University of Exeter. I've got to read this statement to you now from DeFRA. A spokesperson said the mental health and well-being of farmers matters a huge amount. And we recognise that many have faced a wide range of challenges in recent years. We have provided some grants for dedicated projects to support farmers. And we'll continue to listen to their concerns so that we can better.

respond to the challenges that they face. And again, if you've been affected by anything you've heard in this particular topic we've talked about today, please head to the BBC's Action Line where you will find links to support. Now, the Woman's Hour Guide to Life is back with a brand new series. This week, Nula and guests are exploring self-promotion, why it doesn't have to mean being loud. Nula meets Carla Kuri, Trailblazer, the UK's first recorded Black Winter Mountain Leader, yet for Carla, binging herself up in person and online is hard.

So to help Carla out, the guide to life, here's from writer and motivational speaker, Stephanie Sord Williams, who explains the difference between being big in your bold gestures and those smaller, more subtle ways to advocate for yourself. So often the reason we don't embrace self-promotion is because we say things like, I'm not loud, I'm not extroverted, I don't want to be that person. And there are two really clear pathways, which is a firework approach would be, I'm going to post something on LinkedIn once and it's going to splash out like a firework and reach lots of people.

And that's one approach to self-promotion. And it's generally the form that we feel most nervous about because it feels the most revealing or the most judgmental. And the opposite is the fishing net approach, which is I'm going to gather small groups of people through my fishing net. And I'm going to quietly influence them on my terms in a much much, more casual, organic way. So that might be you hosting walks for close friends who then invite their friends. It might be you setting up focus groups and interviewing people around what they might be struggling with or why they're not embracing the outdoors. But it's much more about that quiet influence rather than feeling like you need to dominate

and be the loudest person in the route. That is the Woman's Our Guide to Life. Self-promotion without the cringe. You can find it now in the Women's Hour feed. and next up in this coming Sunday's edition How to Get More Sleep and Worry About It Less So take a listen to that. Now, Aleve Scott's latest book,

Cash Cow is a fascinating deep dive into the commodification of women's bodies from the global fertility industry to the donation and selling of breast milk. It poses the question who should make money from the maternal body. Only the women themselves, anyone, or no one. Going undercover, she also explores the breast milk black market, the trade in harvesting

eggs, and the women who are surrogates for others. Delighted to say, Alev, joins me in the Women's Studio. Welcome to the program. Hi, thank you for having me. Now, why did you want to look at the subject of fertility as a commodity? I have to say, you are 37 weeks pregnant now with your third child. I am. And you have two young children. I do. So this is dominating your thoughts and your live. Is that why? Take us back to the start of the story. Yeah, I didn't really set out to write about fertility. It wasn't a path I saw myself taking as a writer. I sort of stumbled into it. After the birth of my first child, I had an oversupply of milk. And I'd heard from a friend that it's possible to donate your breast milk, which I didn't know before becoming a mother. So I looked into that. I

looked into donating to hospitals, non-profit milk banks near my home. And in the course of that research, I came across the commercial online market, which again, I had no idea existed. And I became extremely interested in the ethics of that market, in who was buying, who was selling, why I decided to post an ad as a seller myself to sort of see who would approach me. and I talked to other sellers online and the results were very surprising.

Well, I have to say it's quite a shocking opening to your book. It's a real conversation starter. Tell us about the men who responded to that advert. Yeah, so I had been expecting other mothers, perhaps, with low milk supply or adoptive parents, gay parents, perhaps who were in the market for breast milk. But actually most of the people who approached me were men. And a lot of them claimed initially that it was for bodybuilding.

It's very big in that community or for other health reasons. Some were just overtly sexual from the outset. Most of them, once I got into kind of a correspondence, admitted that there was a sexual element to why they were buying milk. And all of this just made it more fascinating for me because I really tried to suspend my judgment. This was such a wild new world for me. I didn't want to pass judgment on the women selling their milk or really on people buying.

But yeah, it made me think about whether we should treat breast milk as a commodity. And if not, why not? And then that kind of opened the door to other routes that I took into researching the commodification of women's bodies, specifically the maternal body, eggs, surrogacy, and that's what the rest of the book is about. Is there a stigma then? Do you think there still is a stigma about women selling breast milk, for example? Definitely, definitely. I mean, I notice some of the most vicious criticism of these women

on supposedly supportive mothers' websites and communities, social media groups. It's often women who I think are most critical of other women selling their milk. but you know lots of people have a have a more pragmatic attitude to it including the women selling themselves a lot of the women selling are aware that they're viewed critically by other women and they're quite defensive and they say things like if if people are okay buying infant formula for their babies why shouldn't they be okay with buying breast milk from other women which is you know a line of argument I have a certain amount of sympathy for.

Exploitation, obviously, is a big kind of red flag in this area. How did you walk away from some of these women thinking, I'm not sure you'd make this as a life choice if you felt you had a choice. Yeah, I did, actually. I felt some of the stories I encountered were really sad. There was one woman I remember, in particular, a woman in Texas who had given up her baby for adoption because she couldn't afford, she said, to keep it. and she decided to sell her breast milk that was obviously not going to be used by this baby.

And she also advertised breastfeeding services. And she was approached by mothers who wanted her help, but also by adult men. And she provided that service for both categories. She charged the men more. And I asked her if she felt safe. And she said, well, not really, but I always breastfeed with a gun in my pocket. which as an image really stayed with me. And I thought that doesn't sound to me like an entirely healthy choice there.

But, you know, perhaps she was at the more extreme end of the sellers on that particular marketplace. But yeah, it's a situation where I think it's hard to have a hard and fast attitude because it really depends on context. one thing that really brought this home to me was the case of some Cambodian women who'd been selling their breast milk to an American company. And they were compensated for this breast milk, which was then sold on a huge profit to American customers. And when the media got wind of this,

the Cambodian government shut it all down, banned the export of breast milk. And this was seen as a huge win for women's rights groups at the time. But when you actually read the reports of local media, your outlets who'd interviewed the women who had been selling their breast milk. These women were devastated because they'd lost a source of income that was really important to them that allowed them to stay at home with their children and gave them more money than they would get from other avenues. And so for me, that shows that it's not easy to come into this and say, look, that's

definitely exploitative, we should absolutely shut that down. That shouldn't be allowed. Not necessarily. And is it patronising for a Western kind of person to come in and say, this is wrong? and we should stop this. You're being exploited. Exactly. Is it? I mean, yes, of course, it is a form of exploitation,

but materially speaking, these women were better off. We have so much to get through. So I'm sorry to hurry you along. I just have to say concerns have been raised with the FSA in the past regarding the sale of human breast milk over the internet and via social media. And the FSA has advised that breast milk purchased from individuals over the internet or elsewhere could be harmful.

So I just put that out there as a health caveat. Still legal, though. Still legal. You went undercover as well at a for example. Retility Trade Fair, clinics in Northern Cyprus as well, which provide harvested eggs for donors. You posed as a potential customer. How much of an eye opener was that?

That was very interesting. Yeah, posing as a donor, I think, was particularly interesting because what I hadn't expected to find out was that in, well, in the particular market I was looking at in northern Cyprus. When I asked how much I would be paid, I was told, well, it depends how many eggs we retrieve from you. So my fertility was directly linked to my earning power, which is something that's extremely frowned upon in markets, even when compensation is not meant to be capped. So in the US, for example, you can earn a huge amount of money for your eggs if you have a certain ethnicity or other traits.

And yet the guidelines are still that you're not paid kind of per egg, basically. You're going through the same amount of hormonal kind of upheaval. and it's the same process. There's something a bit gruesome about the idea of being paid according to your fertility. There's something very kind of battery hen about it, in my mind. Honestly, it's fascinating.

And I'd love to follow up on that, but I also want to ask you a quick one about a surrogacy as well. And the human stories behind this, this woman in the States called Stephanie, who'd been a surrogate for 12 children. And she thinks in her small town in Idaho, around 50% of women are surrogates. Here in the UK, surrogates can only be paid reasonable expenses.

It's a business there. Understandably, she says it's pretty exhausting. Did you feel for Stephanie that money was the main motivator or was there something else going on there? I definitely think she wanted to help other families. I don't think she was in it purely for the money. She's lucky that she finds pregnancy easy. In fact, she told me many times how much she loves pregnancy. So for her, it was a kind of win-win job.

And she could also do it alongside her part-time job as a... as a clerk in a courthouse. So she was very proud of the fact that she significantly contributed to her family's income, that they were paying off the debt on their house. I got the sense from her that she was a very proud, she was very proud of her experiences. She was not an exploited woman, but at the same time in my research, I was obviously encountering instances where women were absolutely being exploited as surrogates

in other parts of the world and other markets. And the US is not perfect either. but she was a kind of poster girl, I suppose, for when surrogacy goes right. So in conclusion, it's very difficult, as you just highlighted, to say, this is exploitation or it's liberation or whatever it is. It very much depends on the circumstance. What do you think needs to change for women to feel better, protected generally if they decide to go into this world?

I think we have to be realistic that surrogacy is growing extremely fast. It's going to grow almost tenfold in the next. nine years. And so there aren't enough altruistic surrogates to go around. Commercial surrogacy is, there are very few places you can go and do it completely legally as you can in many states in the US. And I just think we need to be realistic that whatever your feelings,

it might be nice to think that altruistic surrogacy is the nicest form and should be the only form. But actually, that's not going to be the case. So we have to regulate it. I think there are many comparisons with sex work, which I won't go into now. but I do think that having everything above board, legal, regulated, is really the only way forward.

And that's pretty much my main conclusion. Well, I tell you what, it's an absolutely fascinating read. Thank you so much for dropping by the Women's Hour Studios. I love Scott there and Cash Cow is out on the 26th of February, which is tomorrow. That is it for Women's Hour from me, Claire MacDonald, Anita's in tomorrow. That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Parenting a young child today means navigating a whirlwind of advice, opinions and relentless information.

Tell me about it, Katie, but the good news is CBB's parenting download is here to take the edge off. Join me, Katie Thistleton, Radio One presenter and new mum. And me, Governor B, Mobo Award winning rapper and dad of two, as we discover and unpack what it really means to be a parent. From the art of negotiation to tips on dealing with parental anxiety. Each episode, we're joined by well-known parents and trusted professionals to share their own experiences. People say you never know until you have your own, but no one ever really gets into what that means. And it's very true. Someone, when I was on my first walk with him alone in the pram, someone went, press green, went, yeah, you went, congratulations, went, cheers.

And he went, welcome to the truth club. What do you mean? You'll find out soon enough. And to provide useful tools and advice to tackle the daily challenges that come with parenting, offering honest conversations and expert insight that can really. help. The biggest thing that I've noticed since I became a negotiator is we don't listen. We're really good at pretending we listen and we do this, don't we? So our young people in our life, especially are talking away. You've asked them a question. They're answering the question and you're like this. Because you're not really interested because you're

already thinking about what's next. We've learned so much already. So whether you're a first-time parent, you've got multiple kids, you're a carer or a grandparent, this podcast is for you. Search for CBB's Parents in Download with me, Katie Thistleton. And me, Governor B. Listen now on BBC Sounds. This is not the future we were promised. Like, how about that for a tagline for the show? From the BBC, this is the interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world.

This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews. It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics. your everyday life, and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.