Woman's Hour - Louise Thompson, Estranged grandparents

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

After suffering complications during the birth of her son, Leo, in 2021, former Made in Chelsea star Louise Thompson developed PTSD. Now, she’s been trying to break the taboo surrounding birth trauma by posting about it to her 1.5 million followers on social media. Louise was invited to Parliament to hear women addressing the Birth Trauma Inquiry last year, led by MP Theo Clarke, and wrote about her experience in her Sunday Times Bestselling book, Lucky. Louise joins Clare McDonnell.It’s estimated that one in seven grandparents in the UK are estranged from their grandchildren but legally they have no automatic right to contact. 18 years ago Jane Jackson set up Bristol Grandparents Support Group when she and her husband found themselves estranged from their seven year old granddaughter. Jane joins Clare to discuss supporting grandparents who find themselves in a similar situation. Family lawyer Vanessa Lloyd Platt explains the current legal situation and why she believes there should be an amendment to the Children’s Act.

BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello, this is Claire MacDonald and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. Lovely to have your company over the next couple of days. Here's a question for you. When you were pregnant, did you feel you were listened to by the health professionals around you? When you raise your concerns, were you given the brush off? Well today I'm joined by Louise Thompson, the former Made in Chelsea star who documented the traumatic birth of her son Leo and the subsequent fallout in her book Lucky. Louise says she continues to speak loudly and openly about her experience so that more women may be heard.

openly about her experience so that more women may be heard. One in seven grandparents in the UK are estranged from their grandchildren and legally have no automatic right to contact. Today we're going to hear from a lawyer who wants to change that and a grandparent who lost contact with her grandchild for over a decade and calls it a living bereavement. Louise Butcher was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2022 and underwent a double mastectomy. This weekend she will run the London Marathon, topless, bearing her scars to the world. Louise will join me live. And as new research from Cornell University suggests that how someone smells is a big factor in how we form friendships. Tell me today the one thing that attracted you to your closest friends. Maybe it was

humour, shared political outlook, a love of 80s New Wave music or maybe even a weekend rummage at a car boot sale. Whatever it was, what joined you together with these people. You can text the programme, the number is 84844, text will be charged at your standard message rate. On social media we are at BBC Woman's Hour, you can email us through the website of course as ever, or you can send a WhatsApp message or a voice note using the number 037001444. Looking forward to hearing from you this morning. But let's start with the news that Catholics around the world have been mourning the death of Pope Francis. His death came just a day after he addressed crowds on Easter Sunday. The 88-year-old was the first Latin American leader of the Catholic Church. King Charles said Pope Francis will be remembered for his compassion, his concern for the unity of

the Church and for his tireless commitment to the common causes of all people of faith. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said his tireless efforts to promote a world that is fairer for all will leave a lasting legacy. Well this morning we're taking a look at his impact and legacy on women's roles in the church and also wider society. I'm joined by journalist Joanna Moorhead, former writer with the Catholic newspaper The Tablet, Kate McElween who is the executive director of the Women's Ordination Conference and Sister Gemma Simmons, theologian at the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology in Cambridge. Welcome all of you.

Thank you. Fantastic to have you on the program this morning. Kate, let's start with you because you are in Rome right now. What is the atmosphere like there this morning? I think there's still a sense of shock within the city of Rome, although it wasn't a surprise. Pope Francis obviously was showing his vulnerability on Easter morning, but 35,000 people gathered in the piazza for Easter Sunday and saw Pope Francis greeting people and being the pope that we knew. So I think there's still a lot of shock and mourning. Rome is filled now with the pilgrims for the Jubilee year and obviously for Easter. And so in these coming days, I

think we'll see even more pilgrims come to flock to Rome and share their respects for Pope Francis. But certainly it's a somber mood here. Let's talk about then the key changes Pope Francis made for women in the church. What was that lasting legacy, would you say? I think his legacy will be remembered by his commitment to dialogue, which really emboldened a deep discernment about the role of women within church structures. He brought formerly taboo topics onto the table and up for discussion. During his pontificate, we witnessed

many significant appointments to women in administrative roles within the Vatican. We witnessed women voting for the first time at a Vatican meeting. And I think these cultural and practical shifts really can't be understated. Unfortunately, I think for many who longed for these doors to open fully to women, those who longed for women priests and women deacons or ordained ministries, Francis was a really complicated

figure and sometimes heartbreaking. He kept this closed-door policy on women's ordination, which felt really incongruous with his otherwise pastoral nature. And so, you know, we pray that the doors that he unlocked will open, but certainly for some women he fell short. Yes, and we're going to get on to that discussion in just a few moments, but what do we know, would you say, about how Catholics feel about the role of women in the Church changing? The majority of Catholics globally and especially in the United States support the ordination of women as deacons and priests, and I think many long for the institutional church to become in better alignment with their faith. And so I think there's a real disappointment that the church is a place where women's rights,

the door of the church is where women's rights sort of get suspended. And it's harder and harder for women to bring their families to church. And so I think that it feels like a tipping point in many ways. And Francis, we hoped, would walk farther along that path towards equality. Okay, let's bring Joanna in now, Joanna Moorhead. I mean, the same question to you, Joanna. There's a sense of maybe disappointment that he didn't go far enough on this from some quarters. Yeah, I think Francis was the first pope to really probably understand kind of intellectually

and in himself that the lack of parity and the lack of opportunities women and maybe even how much the church has suffered as a result of that because that's very much my argument. You know, I don't see this as really about women's rights. I see this as a way of making the church a better place. I mean, everybody knows the kind of problems the Catholic church has been up against and is still up against on all kinds of fronts. And we don't know how those would have been different if women had had an equal place at the table. But personally, I think that even if those historic problems had

still happened, I think they would have been dealt with very differently. So I don't think this is really about women's rights, I think it's about the future of the church and a future, I would even say it's about a future for the church, because what other institution can we look at and see in the world around us where women are as far back as they are in the Catholic Church? I mean, I sometimes say, you know, women in the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church is in another century as regards women and it's not even the last century. Right. I mean, as far as practicing Catholics, women of faith, what is their view of that? Is there a kind of progressive view amongst women who regularly go to church in the Catholic

faith that they want to see this change? Well, I think there are, to be fair, women in the Catholic Church who are still going to Mass who don't think there should be change, but I'm not sure that they're the women of tomorrow. I mean they've got every right to be there, don't get me wrong, but I've raised four daughters and they grew up as Catholics and they went to Catholic schools and in those Catholic schools they saw around them women who were

head teachers and were head teachers and deputy head teachers and leaders. And then they look at the Catholic church and there are no women leaders. And that obviously makes them think that this is an institution that's out of touch. So I'm not surprised that none of my girls are that connected to the church today.

And I think they might be, if they could see the real world, you know, the world that we live in around us reflected in the Catholic Church. I mean, I think the Pope Francis did recognize the problem, and that was really important. But he was, as the next pope, unfortunately, will be, he was somebody with so many issues to deal with,

so many urgent issues, abuse, power, money, all these kind of issues on the table. And I'm afraid the same thing may happen again, that women is kind of at the bottom of the entree. It was pretty political, wasn't he, when it came to talking about capitalism, talking about the treatment of immigrants, talking about the effect of capitalism on the environment worldwide. Of course, women get kind of pulled into all of those issues. And yet he wouldn't necessarily go out on a limb, as you

said, when it came to issues like divorce, like contraception and the like. Tell us about his views on those issues. Well, I think he was very much a man of, as we all are, you know, we're all people of where we come from and the place in the world we come from and the ideas that we had around us growing up. And he came from a very different place and time, Argentina and the middle of the 20th century. That was where his views were kind of born, I suppose. And he was not a progressive in his heart, I think,

as regards women. And we saw that in times like 2014, when he described Europe as being like a grandmother, no longer fertile and vibrant. I mean, obviously he wrote back on these comments and realized what a mistake he'd made. But I say it, not to downgrade him, but to say that that shows something about the man

and where he came from. You know, he wasn't, he wasn't a radical character. He had old, what we might call old fashioned views, as you say, on, on issues to do with women's bodies. He did say that very good thing, you know, and he said, who am I to judge when he was asked about gay priests on that flight? And I think, you know, in his heart, he had, I mean, I don't blame him for saying that about grammars. He probably just had never imagined. I mean, he didn't grow up in a world, and this is the thing with priests, you know, they train in all male environments, in very

conservative setups, and then they're pulled into this world, which is all men. They don't mix, you know, he's not listening to Woman's Hour, I fear. Well maybe the next one will, you never know. And we know it'll be a he, but maybe he will. Well yes, Sister Jemma Simmons, let's bring you in here. Your thoughts on him first of all as a leader? I think as a leader he reflected something immensely important, both about his provenance as a Jesuit, which was to find God in all things and to try and take people out of a narrow little

religious holy bubble. And one of the things he really waged a war against was clericalism, was the idea that the church is a kind of closed shop where the only people who have leadership, the only people who make decisions are those who are ordained. And I think it was that that fought very strongly with his instinct of creating a church that was more appreciative of and inclusive of women because his great idea was to get leadership and a sense of responsibility and leadership among

all the baptized, not just around those who wear a dog collar around their neck. So for him I think there was a real clash, if you like, of ideological priorities between trying to get ordinary Catholics to assume the roles of leadership which they might have within their communities and to move away from the idea that father does it all and so for him the idea of ordaining women I think clashed with that as well as as Joanna says with his own kind of cultural background and perhaps also his theological background although he knew very well that there is no

theological reason whatsoever why women should not be ordained deacons, and that is still a fight that is worth fighting and is worth taking forward. Talk us through this then. He did actually make women, appoint women to senior positions in the Vatican, and that hadn't been done before. So tell us what he did. Well, he, for instance, we've just had a global synod, and he made one of the principal people in charge of the synod a French sister, Natalie Becker, who's a remarkably competent woman. And he gave her a leadership role role which effectively gave her the status of a bishop. It didn't give her the ordination of a bishop but it certainly

gave her considerable authority and he's put other women in charge of what are called the Vatican Dicasteries, the Vatican departments. I mean it's not true to say that there's never been leadership of women in the Catholic Church. I mean, there have been great women saints who've been extraordinary leaders. I mean, we had some amazing Anglo-Saxon abbesses in this country, you know, way back in the dark ages, let alone the Middle Ages and beyond. So there have been great female figures in the church but they've tended to be within the confines of religious orders whereas this is departments dealing with money, departments dealing with art

treasures, departments dealing with some of the very very serious cases that are up in front of the Vatican Department for decision making with regard for instance to the treatment of men and women belonging to religious orders. And I did a very major piece of research at the request of the Vatican as to the way in which the people on the ground, the religious sisters and brothers on the ground feel about their life. And some of the reports coming back from the women across the world were truly alarming. And Pope Francis picked those up and ran with them, which is the first time the Pope has done that. Let's bring in Sister Gemma, well we've just heard from Sister Gemma Simmons, Kate McElwey

again. Kate, you are part of an organisation that campaigns for women's involvement and ordination. What do you think to what Sister Gemma has just said, that there was dialogue, he was very progressive in many ways but didn't make that final step? I think I agree completely that his posture against clericalism was a barrier for his understanding about women in ordained roles. He was afraid of clericalizing women, which of course is an argument that we've seen throughout history that women shouldn't be involved in politics or in medicine and law because it's a men's work, it's dirty, or those old arguments. And so I think I would agree that that was a barrier for Francis.

But in many ways, especially through the Synod on Synodality, he really emboldened the dialogue about these issues. And even last May, when he was asked on a 60 Minutes interview about the ordination of women deacons, he said very clearly no. And yet he allowed the Church to continue this discernment and assigned a final document at the Synod on Synodality this past October saying that this question

should continue. So I think that shows a bit of his leadership that even if he had a personal opinion, he was able to evolve and listen and allow the church to really respond to the needs of today. So it's an extraordinary quality for a leader. Of course, it feels like a little bit, these commissions and continued study are really painful in a way for some people would argue to maintain the status quo. And yet the church continues to talk about these issues. Just very briefly while I have you, it's interesting to sort of look to the runners and riders

now if you look across the newspapers here in the UK of all the people they're discussing that who could succeed him. One in particular Cardinal Tolentino is somebody who would, has actually said he has tolerant views on same-sex relationships and allies himself with a feminist Benedictine sister who favors women's ordination and is pro-choice. If these were the kind of people that Pope Francis was putting at the center of the Vatican, do you think that bodes well for the future? I think it's interesting. Pope Francis has appointed about 80% of the cardinal electors who will gather for the conclave. 135 ordained men will make this decision. And so I hope that the fruits of the Synod on Synodality are a guiding light during those discernments.

But at the same time, the cardinals he's appointed come from very far parts of the world who don't obviously agree on everything. So I just, I hope that the leadership of Pope Francis offers some guidance, but it's hard to know where those discernments will go. Thank you all so much. Fascinating discussion. Thank you so much for joining us on Woman's Hour this morning. You heard the voice there of Kate McElwee, Executive Director of Women's Ordination Conference. We heard also from Sister Jemma Simmons, theologian at the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology in Cambridge, and also from journalist Joanna

Moorhead, former writer with the Catholic newspaper, The Tablet. You can get in touch with your views, 84844, on the text number. Now, this next conversation involves details of a traumatic birth which may be difficult for some people to listen to. Just a warning there. After suffering complications during the birth of her son Leo in 2021, former Made in Chelsea star Louise Thompson had to

undergo an emergency operation and lost more than three litres of blood. Just after returning home, she was then rushed back into hospital in the middle of the night with a hemorrhage. Louise is now trying to break the taboo surrounding birth trauma by speaking frankly about it to her one and a half million followers on social media. And a Sunday Times bestselling book Lucky about her experience is out in paperback this week. Delighted to say Louise joins me now in the studio. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you so much for coming in. Now the title of your book is Lucky and anyone who's, because this was out last year, the paperback is out now, people may think why does she count herself lucky after going through

something that traumatic? Well it's a very good question and I actually chose the title a good couple of years ago. Since then, I've actually had three more subsequent surgeries and it's something that I question fairly regularly whether I do count myself as lucky, having gone through so much medical trauma. I think that really, you know, having spent so much time in and out of hospital, I've seen other people that are less lucky than me, and it's really put life into perspective. I feel very fortunate to live so close to a hospital. I feel very fortunate to live in this country where we do have access to free healthcare. I've come across some incredible people during my recovery. Without their help I wouldn't be sat here today. So there are many things, you

know, I was supposed to be on a flight three days after one of the hemorrhages I had a year following the birth of my son and And I think I'm very lucky not to have been on that flight. So I think I've sort of narrowly avoided death on many occasions. And I still count myself as pretty lucky to have been able to also be in a position where I'm so fortunate that I get to talk publicly about what I've been through to try and help other people. And that has also served as such a big part of my recovery. It's kind of been a big...

It'll certainly, and having been through one problematic birth myself, reading this again, I just thought this is such a service you're doing for women to sort of say, not all women, but there's an idea that if you have a voice, use it and you should be listened to. The book is split into two, before and after. So tell us a little bit, for people who haven't read this and haven't heard your story, about your experience during birth. How did it start to unravel? Of course. So I think prior to giving birth to my son three and a half years ago, I was one of the most healthy people out there. That was one of the most healthy people that I knew.

I'd done the cover of Women's Health twice. I was in a pretty good place and I think I'd only stepped foot in a hospital once. But I had a slightly challenging pregnancy. I was pretty anxious. I'd suffered with a miscarriage before and I do have an inflammatory bowel disease and I'd suffered with fainting spells. Later on during the pregnancy, I was in quite a lot of pain and struggling to sleep and also I had this sort of cascade of events but I was actually involved in a house fire at my mother's house where

we were living at the time and that was a month out from giving birth. So my partner and I felt fairly displaced and I think I'd always known that my body, you know, I have the body of a 14 year old boy, you know, I have the body of a 14-year-old boy, you know I'm very narrow and I don't have childbearing hips and it was not something I'd ever Wanted to go through, you know I knew I wanted to extend our family and I was desperate to have a child But I didn't love the idea of a natural birth and I think as women instinctively we know What is best for us and I really tried to advocate for myself to push for a plan cesarean section,

to give myself a little bit of control, given that we didn't know where we were going to be coming home to that night. And we also... And I just... Yeah, I didn't feel great about it. So I tried to speak to various different midwives, and there was a slight lack of continuity of care and I was pointing a lot of different directions and I couldn't I couldn't get the answers you know I felt like I had to jump through a lot of hoops but no

one said okay here is the right person to speak to this is who you need to email this is who you need to pick up the phone and ask this person. And every time you brought this up to say I you know at my partner, he's enormous, I'm tiny, my hips are this wide, I'm really worried about this. Could I not have an elective caesarian? What was the answer? Well, it is my right. So since having my son, I've looked into this in more detail and there's an amazing

resource called birthrights.org.uk which will highlight all of your rights out there. And everyone is entitled to a safe and dignified birth. I didn't know that at the time. So in the end, I just succumbed to my fate and I did go into labor naturally on my due date. And I ended up, I wasn't able to give birth naturally. My son, he didn't come out of me, he got stuck in my pelvis.

I knew that he had a bigger than usual head. I'm five foot, as you say, my partner is very tall. And I ended up in theater and it was an awful harrowing experience. I was awake for three and a half hours. And as you mentioned before, I lost three and a half liters of blood. And I had to witness that whole thing. And

that was immensely scarring. I had no idea what had happened to me. I was in shock. My baby was taken to NICU, so I didn't get a chance to bond with him. I didn't even get to meet him. I didn't know whether he was alive. And I was then wheeled into a side room, which I've later learned I should have been taken into at least a high dependency unit. And then I was sent home less than a week later and I hadn't even processed what had happened to me. I didn't know what was going on. They didn't tell you what had actually happened though, did they? Because there was a further injury that happened during the birth and you didn't know about this but it came home

to you. What happened afterwards? So a couple of days into being at home I suffered a massive obstetric hemorrhage and I lost all of the blood in my body so I lost five and a half litres and I was blue-lit into the hospital and I ended up having to have another emergency surgery and that was a really devastating experience for me because I was on my own and it was in the middle of the night and I genuinely thought every second for the 20, however long it was until I was put to sleep, I've believed that I was going to die every single second. And I don't believe that anybody should have to ever go through that to then survive, to live with the consequences of that because the post-traumatic stress that comes off the back of that is so debilitating. So yeah, and I woke up in intensive care and

again, you know, I could never have expected any of this and it was really, really just completely, just it turned my whole life upside down. We have to say that the reason, the lot of the reason you were on your own, because this is during COVID, wasn't it? So when you look back on this now, and it's a horrific experience to go through, but you look back on it through that lens as well,

to say, maybe I could have had more support, antenatally before the birth, maybe I could have had more support in the hospital if it weren't for this. Does that factor in now? I think it does. Definitely, you know, it was off the back, at the end of COVID, when I got pregnant. And a few things. So I did all of my NCT classes were actually through the NHS and they were all online.

So I had no experience with real women sitting in a room full of people, kind of demonstrating things, talking about things, asking the really important questions. And then yes, later on, my partner wasn't allowed, he was allowed in the theater, so I was grateful to have him there, but it was also incredibly traumatic for him

and it left him with some memories that have been very scarring for him to have to go on to process too. But yes, I was very limited with who was able to visit me afterwards, so that was very challenging and yeah when I ended up in A&E I wasn't allowed any hand-holding at all so I really thought that I was going to be on my own in my last days. So you went through this incredible disassociation twice. You go through a birth which turns into a three and a half hour operation. You're separated from your son. You go home, not

to your home, well, you know, to a home that's kind of being worked on. You have this awful hemorrhage. You go back in, you end up in intensive care this first time and you say anybody who goes through anything like that would be left traumatized. How did it impact you? Well, so when I was in the hospital it was hard. I had horrendous flashbacks, so I'd wake up in the middle of the night screaming, crying, sweating and I was actually in a room full of people at that point so it must have been pretty pretty hard for them too. Some of the people I've

actually met since, oddly enough, the world has a funny way of serving you up those conversations again later on in life. But yeah, at least I found a place of safety because I found people that I trusted there so I then built up a very good relationship with an amazing female consultant there who took very good care of me. The real challenges came when I then was discharged and sent home. And I had a week where I thought everything was going to be okay. And I remember booking things like eye tests and just convenient appointments, dental appointments. And then something happened and an ambulance

went past one day as I was walking down my street and I fully dissociated. And I just remember feeling like I was living life through a completely different lens and I lost touch with reality. I didn't know my name, I didn't know where I lived. I was glued to the sofa for weeks on end and I would sort of go through in and out of these phases

of being Louise and then not being Louise. And And I had to really lean on a lot of support from friends, family, well, less friends actually at the time because I didn't see anyone for quite a while because I was not in a great place, but a lot of family, a lot of people still from the hospital. The crisis team had to come every day for a two-week period to check that I was alive still. I fell into a place of deep, deep despair. I had really severe post-natal depression and PTSD. And it was really scary for myself, but also, you know, the people, my family looking inwards as well, because they had no experience. None of us had any experience with any of this, and no one really knew what to do. And how did you bond with your baby throughout

all of this? If I'm completely honest I had a very, a very bad relationship with my son at the beginning. I just didn't have a big relationship with him. When he was born, I didn't have any of the niceties of skin on skin. He was straight in NICU. He was then taken home to be looked after by my partner when I was back in hospital for over three weeks. He was brought in, but I was in such a state of survival and this sort of hyper vigilant mode that I didn't even know he was there. He was sat in a car seat when my partner would bring him in and all I could do was just engage. I couldn't engage with him. I couldn't look at him. He was associated with what happened. And even later on then when I was back at home, I found his, incredibly triggering. And I couldn't be left alone with him.

And I remember actually when the crisis team came, they would sit around my kitchen table and they would ask me every time, every day, they'd say, have you spent time with your son today? And I remember answering, I've done three minutes. Like I've done three minutes. And that is just unthinkable. It's just not what you see.

And slowly, slowly I built that up. So it would go from three minutes to four minutes to five minutes. And then, you know, it took me a few months to even feel sturdy enough to wear him in the baby carrier on my chest. But I knew that there were things that I should be doing, so I tried to kind of bring them in and automate them, and I became a bit of a robot. So whilst I knew that there was no

emotional connection there, and especially when I was feeling really dissociation, I would just lie on the floor with him and I would read. And I wasn't listening to what I was reading. I was just reading out these words, but I knew that it was important for him to hear my voice and to build that connection over time. What changed? Because now you do have that bond with him. What changed and how did it change? We have the most incredible relationship now and he is just the most gorgeous, rambunctious, fun boy ever and he's actually my best friend and it was so cool like this weekend he turned to me and he said, mama you're my best friend.

And I honestly am just so grateful that I stuck all of this out and have been able to get to this place. I think look look, it was slow incremental stages. I had to just keep pushing through. I had to really work on myself. I worked with an incredible back accredited therapist, psychotherapist, did a lot of trauma processing. I spoke to a lot of people. There was a point in time actually where I was potentially going to have to go to a Sort of like a therapy like a clinic Which is to stay somewhere else to get therapy and actually we decided that that was a bad idea because then I would be just Be removed from my son and then it would be harder actually to integrate again if I did come back

so I just slowly spent more and more time with him and So I just slowly spent more and more time with him. And then I built up that trust in myself that I could parent. And the better I got, the better I got at parenting. And it was the little moments that I had with him. You know, there would be small things. I built in a routine that I felt safe in, really, to be honest, and I would make sure that I was just holding him enough throughout the day. And I'd sit on this chair for hours and hours and I would just look at him.

And eventually, when I started getting something back from him, the connection developed. And this book is an incredible read and you are searingly honest and we have to say to people listening that, you know, you have these trigger warnings in the book if you're going to go talk about what happened to you in the hospital that this is coming up. And I know you're an advocate for women being listened to and you attended the birth trauma inquiry last year to connect with and hear all those other stories. What do you hope comes out of this? What's the change, the difference

that you're trying to make? So I work closely with the Birth Trauma Association and I think it's incredible all of the work that they're doing. They offer amazing therapy for people that don't know where else to turn. I think really it comes down to women being listened to more. You know, I have experiences in other departments

in the hospital, I've had surgery on my bowels and I was treated very differently there. I think that unfortunately with things like giving birth, there's such a wide spectrum of how it can go. So some people just breeze through it, other people really struggle. And I think that because of that,, there's an expectation that people might recover in a certain... I think still people assume that all women should be out of hospital in X amount

of days and feeling a certain way five days postpartum. I had a man tell me that I should be out at my local supermarket, doing my local shop five days following my massive obstetric hemorrhage, which is obviously totally unrealistic. And this was a medic? Very cruel. And this is a consultant who has a lot of experience. And I knew that I was in a lot of pain and I shouldn't have been discharged from the hospital, but I couldn't speak up for myself.

I needed someone to advocate for me and I have, you know, I did a sort of birth debrief at the hospital and they did say this is something we really need to act on. We have to listen to women and to listen to how they're feeling because at the end of the day you can't see inside somebody's body unless you do a scan and obviously like where a scan is necessary that's very important too but I think that a big part of it is just listening to women and trusting that a woman knows best about their body. Well it's a fine point to end on Louise thank you so much for coming in. Louise Thompson the paperback is called Lucky it is out this Thursday the 24th of April and we also have to say for links to information and support regarding birth trauma we've put

information and links on the Woman's Hour website so you can head there. Thank you so much for coming in. It's great to have you here. We just have to read this statement. A spokesperson for the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust told us this, the health and wellbeing of those in our care is our absolute priority. And it's right we recognise when this care doesn't meet the standards that patients rightly expect and that we learn from it. Patient safety and the quality of care we provide are fundamental to our maternity service. Our thoughts and best wishes are with Louise and her family. We are committed to working with all our patients and will continue to work with Louise on supporting her and providing

appropriate resources and guidance. That's a statement from the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Now I have to tell you that next Bank Holiday Monday we're going to be discussing mistakes, why we make them, why we hate making them and what we can learn from them. We want to know about the mistakes that changed your life for good or bad. Maybe you caught the wrong train which led you to find the love of your life or did a mistake at work maybe lead to a new career. You can get in touch via our email or you can message us via WhatsApp and the number is 03 700 100 444. Many of you getting in touch already on the

quality that you look for in a friend. This is one text is saying I met my best friend when we were 12 and we didn't speak the same language. Somehow through various mimes, dictionaries and sounds, we managed to get our points across. The point was usually to make each other laugh. 22 years later, we speak the same language and make each other laugh every single day. Just texted her to tell her she must smell excellent. We're asking you what is the quality you look for in a friend because Cornell University did a bit of research to say smell is an important factor.

So tell me the quality that you look for in a friend or that you have with your best friend at the text number 84844. Now let's talk about grandparents because it's estimated that one in seven grandparents in the UK are estranged from their grandchildren but legally they have no automatic right to contact them. 18 years ago Jane Jackson set up Bristol Grandparent Support Group when she and her husband found themselves estranged from their seven-year-old granddaughter following their son's divorce. She now supports grandparents who find themselves in a similar situation. Family lawyer Vanessa Lloyd-Platt also joins us to talk about this. She believes there should be an amendment to the Children's Act to enshrine the right of a child to have access to their grandparents. Welcome both of you.

Thank you. Thanks so much for joining us. Vanessa, let's start with you. You're a grandparent of six, I understand. And as a family lawyer, you have worked with grandparents who are estranged from their adult children and therefore, by default, their grandchildren. You want this amendment. Why is it necessary?

The current situation in the legal position is completely unsatisfactory. We just do not want grandparents having to struggle to go to court to see their grandchildren with whom they previously had very close and happy relationships. And knowing as a grandparent how special that relationship is, I find the entire situation utterly heartbreaking. My firm and a lot of us have been campaigning for a long time for changes,

because at the current time, a grandparent, even if they have to go to the root of the court, that as you rightly said, they have no automatic right, as a parent has, a parent has. A parent has parental responsibility,

an automatic right to apply to see their children. Grandparents don't. They have to go through two hurdles. They have to apply for leave first. And if they're lucky enough to get leave, and many do not, they can then apply to see their grandchildren. But the length of time that these processes take mean that they are estranged sometimes for years before cases get to court. The whole system needs an overhaul. My firm has already redrafted parts of the

Children Act so that grandparents are right there with rights being given to them and we are desperately trying to get the change in the law. Grandchildren must have a right to see their grandparents. Let's bring in Jane now. Jane, your own experience of estrangement 18 years ago, can you tell us briefly what happened and how it left you feeling? Yeah, we were within our granddaughter's life for seven years and used to see her regularly, even though we both live at opposite ends of the country. And we had, you know, as Vanessa has just said, you know, being a grandparent is an utter privilege. It's completely different from being a parent and it's very special and

unique relationship. And so it became quite clear after a couple of years that my son and daughter in law's marriage was not going in the right direction. And it ended in separation and divorce. Our granddaughter still came to visit on a regular basis for a while. And then it was at Easter, ironically, as we've just had Easter in 2007, when she was sitting in the back of our car and she said, I've been told to dump my family in Bristol. That's when the red flags flew and actually she was correct and that was the last time we saw her for 11 years.

And you've set up this group, I mean just tell us how that felt because you have this such an important person in your life and then they're gone but they're not really gone, you know they're still there how hard was that yeah it's it's devastating and we call it a living bereavement because actually the experience is exactly the same except you're mourning somebody who is still here and you it the process is exactly the same. You go through the different stages of grief as a result. And for some grandparents, it's intolerable. Many grandparents who contact me are suicidal. Sadly, in my own experience, I know of two grandparents who couldn't continue their life with the estrangement going on.

So it's a very serious, you know, it's not to be flippant about. This is a really serious, almost public health issue now for the grandparents and the grandchildren. Both sides are missing out on so much,'t they just tell us how your story? Concluded in a way because there has there been a conclusion to it There was a conclusion And we were reunited with my granddaughter When she was 18 she made the decision to come and find us and

That was extraordinary. I mean I can't put into words what that was extraordinary. I mean, I can't put into words what that was like really. And of course what's happened is your memory is still of that little seven-year-old little girl. And yet walking up my garden path was a mature young woman of 18. So you can never go back. You have to rebuild that relationship and start being... Many grandparents will talk about the lost years, but they are just that really.

They are in the past. You can't bring those back. So if you are lucky enough to be reunited at some point, you have to understand that this is a brand new relationship that you are both starting on and you have to work for that trust, because trust has been broken and you have to work very hard to rebuild that trust. Do you have an ongoing relationship now with your granddaughter? We had an ongoing relationship until last year, when she made the decision herself that I can't give you a reason why, but we perhaps were not the family she wanted. And her text messages,

of which I was getting text messages every day, and we were reciprocating text messages every day. And, you know, we were reciprocating text messages every day, just stopped. I had a telephone call with her. She was on the phone call, phone call, almost two hours talking to me. Fine. It was nothing.

It was absolutely nothing. She also spoke to my son. He also had a long conversation with her. And we haven't heard from her since. And I can't, I can't. What I say to grandparents, if that happened, I mean there are two things. I'm extraordinarily grateful that I was given that opportunity to be able to tell her how much we loved her, how much we'd missed her, we never stopped thinking about her and to show her our family as it now is, because it was obviously very different from,

you know, those lost years. But at the end of the day, she is an adult and I have to respect that decision. And until she is able to communicate with us, to be able to tell us what went wrong, what the problem was. There's very little we can do. But I do, I mean, I do completely respect her decision, whatever, for whatever reason it may be. And if I knew the answer, I'd

tell you, but I don't have it. Let's just bring Vanessa back in. I know obviously you set out, Vanessa, you're advocating for a change in the law, but before you get to that point, is mediation often a route to take to keep the channels of communication, to keep that relationship alive between grandparents and grandchildren? Well, we certainly advocate it, my firm specialises in that, But not everyone is willing to go to mediation and that is part of the problem. But last year a new directive was given by the courts that before you can go to court you have to undergo some form of alternative dispute resolution so that you look at mediation,

you look at these other forms before they will allow you to go to a final hearing or even issue applications. So it is now being more enshrined into the process, but it takes the willingness of both sides to want to mediate, to find a resolution. But what is so very sad about these cases is that some sides are so intractable that you cannot move them forward. And that is the sadness.

And in an era where children are suffering so much from mental health issues, we think it is so important that the grandparents are there to give them the history, often they give them a lot of financial support as well and it is so vital and in that era we have the most grandparents being estranged. So to bring awareness is the number one thing that we want to do at the moment and people like Jane are so wonderful because they provide support and they provide understanding to these grandparents particularly in some cases where they

have been threatened by the police if they want to keep giving presents or trying to contact their grandchildren that they could be arrested. Now, the heartbreak that these grandparents go through of being almost made criminals for a desire to see the grandchildren, who they already had a good relationship with, is tragic. So we don't just need the court process. We need mediation, we need other forms of resolution so that grandparents aren't estranged and aren't going through this living hell. Jane, final word to you. To have the pain of separation from your granddaughter and

then have her come back into your life and have the pain of separation all over again. Would you still say the reconciliation was worth it to see her as an adult? Oh absolutely, without question. And we were all as a family given an opportunity to get to know her again and to make her feel that actually we are just an ordinary family and that you know the door is still open you know we will never shut that door we are still here for her all of my family I've got four grandchildren and so we all embraced her she is still part of our family she's my first granddaughter and

she always will be. And the grandparents going through something similar, you have your support group. What would you say to them? Those who are feeling that despair that you once felt? Never give up hope. Hope is everything. And I am still hopeful that we will be able to reconnect at some point. Thank you both so much for joining us. Really brilliant having you on the program, such an important issue. You heard the voices there, a family lawyer, Vanessa Lloyd-Platt, and we also heard Jane Jackson, who set up Bristol Grandparents Support Group 18 years ago. Thank you so much both and of course If anything you again have heard in today's discussion has unsettled you You can go to the BBC Action Line where you will find links to support there as well. Thank you all so much for getting in touch on

What has attracted you the the characteristics that have pulled you towards someone as a friend. My wife of 43 years first caught my eye, or should that be ear, at a housewarming party by her voice. It still tingles. And this text says, oh, this is from Cathy, one of my besties, Liz, I call her come as you are, my come as you are friend. It doesn't matter to her if I'm happy or sad. In good shape or falling apart at the seams, she makes me porridge, which makes me feel very loved. Just being there for me in good times and bad is what I appreciate most about her.

Thank you so much for all your texts on that this morning. Now, talking about people who uplift you, we hope our last guest will do just that on Woman's Hour this morning. In 2022, following a breast cancer diagnosis Louise Butcher underwent a double mastectomy, a keen runner, she was soon back out training when one day she decided to go topless bearing her scars to the world. She has since done multiple marathons without anything covering her upper half and she'll be doing exactly that on Saturday when she takes on the London Marathon. Louise joins me now. Hello.

Louise, can you hear me? You know, Louise, I can see you and I can see your mouth moving. Our listeners can't. Is that you Louise? Yes, that's me. Can you hear me now? Yes! The button has been pressed. Fantastic to have you on the programme. Let's just talk about running first of all. Were you always a runner? No, I wasn't. I started running about four years ago because I was struggling with my health, I had health anxiety. So I was constantly thinking, oh, there's something wrong with me when there wasn't. I had like, I kept thinking I had something wrong with my heart. So what I did is the

running became a trick to trick my mind into thinking, well, if I'm running, there's nothing wrong with me. So it kind of stemmed from that. It was like an escapism. Right. And look where it's led to you. Let's talk about breast cancer then, because this was a bit of a shock, wasn't it? Because it doesn't run in your family, but you were going for the regular checks, weren't you? Well, the thing is, is I wasn't at an age where I was being called up for the NHS mammogram. So I, because I was struggling with health anxiety, I actually booked a private one, which was in March 2022. And not for any reason, other than peace of mind. I had no symptoms. I didn't think there was anything wrong. So I went and had that mammogram and it came back clear.

Okay. And then what happened? When did you discover there was something wrong? Okay, and then what happened? When did you discover there was something wrong? Three weeks later, because what happened is because that came back clear, it made me really confident at having a really deep self-check in the shower three weeks later. And that's when I found a really small sort of thickening in my left breast, which felt like they weren't worried. They just sent me to their breast clinic for peace of mind and at the breast clinic they did an ultrasound which showed up five abnormal areas, which turned out to be lobular breast cancer. My goodness, so good job. In a sense, your health anxiety kind of helped you get this diagnosis.

Tell us what happened after that because you, did you think, I'm going to have a mastectomy, I need a mastectomy, what happened? So what happened then is because lobular breast cancer grows like a spider's web and that's why it doesn't show on mammograms. It kind of weaves in and out of the breast tissue and it hasn't got the protein that sticks it together like ductile, which is when it goes into a ball and shows up on, because it shows up the light, lobular doesn't do that and that's why it doesn't show. And also the other thing about lobular breast cancer is it doesn't have clear margins. So I couldn't have a lumpectomy because I didn't know where the margin was, which is where they cut round. Usually it's like in a lump you see. So I had to have a mastectomy and I had my first mastectomy in June 2022.

And you ended up having a double mastectomy and now we come to your decision to run topless. How did you arrive at that? To show your scars to the world? I mean a lot of people listening will say that's unbelievably brave. the effects of... We are losing your line there. ...woman's femininity. And I remember sitting in the surgeon's office and she was a lady and she said from the research, this wasn't her opinion, it was from the research. If you don't have reconstruction. Do you know what this is a real shame because we are losing the line so much there's too much dropping out which is such a shame but you can go and have a look at this fantastic woman and what she's going to be doing at the weekend Louise Butcher you can follow her on Instagram she's had a double mastectomy.

She's done plenty of marathons like this, but she's doing the London Marathon topless on Saturday to do away with the shame and show that life continues on and there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed about living with something like that coming through the other side. So fantastic effort that is Louise Butcher. I'm so so sorry we were unable to hear her in clarity but we had loved having her on for the short period of time. We did just a couple of texts to end the program on this morning. We were speaking earlier to Louise Thompson about her very raw, very honest new book Lucky about the traumatic birth she had with her son, Leo.

This text has got in touch to say this, this is disturbingly familiar. I was told to push that I wasn't trying hard enough. I don't have language for what I experienced after the birth of my son. It was a horrific blur. All I wanted at every appointment was someone to ask me if I was okay, to give me permission to not be. Thank you so much for raising this. Thank you so much for getting in touch. Thank you for joining me tomorrow. My guests will include historian Tiffany Watchsmith and we'll be discussing the book Bad Friends on Messy Female Friendships. Talk to you then.

That's all from today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. hard to know what's really best for us. Do I need to take a testosterone supplement? How can I fix my creaky knees? Why do I get hangry? Is organic food actually better for me? We're going to be your guides through the confusion. We'll talk to experts in the field and argue about what we've learned and share what we've learned and maybe disagree a fair bit too. No we won't. What's up Docs from BBC Radio 4.

Listen now on BBC Sounds.