Woman's Hour - Matrescence, Mexico's 'searching mothers', New novel The Night Nag

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

The BBC has had exclusive access to the world’s largest study scanning pregnant women’s brains. The BeMOther project is based in Spain and has found that women's brains change significantly through pregnancy and beyond. We learn more about the changes and ask why Matrescence - and the transformations that can come with pregnancy, birth and raising a child - are only just starting to receive attention as a distinct life-stage. There's even a campaign to get the word in US dictionaries. Nuala McGovern talks to Smitha Mundasad, a BBC health and science reporter who visited the trial in Spain for her documentary, Baby Brain: What’s Really Going On? and Lucy Jones, the journalist and author of Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood. Hester Musson’s latest book is The Night Hag. It’s a Victorian Gothic novel which takes place in 19th century Scotland. It delves into themes including the budding science of archaeology, spiritualism and folklore legends, but at its heart is the question of the role of women in Victorian society. A major global study says more than a quarter of healthy years lost to breast cancer could be prevented through lifestyle changes like cutting red meat, staying active and not smoking. The Lancet Oncology analysis shows cases worldwide are set to rise by a third, reaching over 3.5 million by 2050. We are joined by Professor Jayant Vaidya, Professor of Surgery and Oncology at University College Hospital, London, Dr Liz O'Riordan, a former breast cancer surgeon who herself has had breast cancer and is currently in remission, and Claire Rowney, Breast Cancer Now’s chief executive, who has been recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Last week, news broke of the killing of one of Mexico’s most dangerous men - known as El Mencho. He was killed by the Mexican military. He ran one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels, the Jalisco Cartel New Generation. In response, members of his cartel torched businesses and buses across the country. But among the burnt-out cars, a new wave of posters appeared, with the faces and names of some of Mexico’s 130,000 people who are either missing or disappeared – a tactic used by criminal cartels. The people taping their faces to walls are often their mothers, part of groups fighting to find out what happened to their loved ones. They are known as 'madres buscadoras' or searching mothers. Journalist Andalusia Soloff joins us from Mexico City, she has been following stories like these for years.Presenter: Nuala McGovern Producer: Helen Fitzhenry

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 the programme. Less is more. So says a study about pregnant women's brains as they shed grey matter preparing for motherhood. You might have heard a little in the bulletin there.

It is fascinating research. We're going to learn more about it and also delve deeper into matressants. Defined in the Cambridge Dictionary is the process of becoming a mother. Those physical, psychological and emotional changes you go through after the birth of your child. Many dictionaries, however, don't list the word, and there is a campaign in the States to change that. But I'd like to know today, what does the word metrescence mean to you? What changes did this period of your life bring?

What do you want people to know about it? You can text the programme. The number is 84844 on social media or at BBC Woman's Hour, or you can email us through our website. For a WhatsApp message or voice note, that number is 0-3-700-100-400. Also today, the author Hester Musson, her book, The Nighthag, You Can Expect Science, Spiritualism and Sleep Paralysis, that conversation also coming up.

We want to talk about breast cancer. It is the leading cause of cancer deaths among women worldwide. We're going to hear what a study found about the difference lifestyle factors like red meat, smoking or exercise can make for some women. And we know it's a dangerous moment in Mexico after the killing of a drug lord El Meno. We're going to talk about the Madres Buscadores. They're the mothers who are searching for their loved ones

who have disappeared in the years that the drug cartels have expanded their control. But let me begin with metrescence, that transformation that can come with pregnancy, birth and raising a child. They're only beginning to receive attention as a distinct life stage that some women go through. It's only in recent years that it has started to receive the widespread attention of neuroscientists asking

what happens to women's brains as their bodies go through the changes of pregnancy and beyond. And already the answers were learning are fascinating. The BBC has had exclusive access to the world's largest study scanning pregnant women's brains. It's called the Bee Mother Project. It's based in Spain. and it's found that women's brains do change significantly through pregnancy and after. There is even a campaign, as I mentioned, to get that word into US dictionaries and other major dictionaries around the world,

something we'll come to in a moment, with me in studio this morning. Ismita Mundasad? Good morning. Good morning. BBC Health and Science reporter and has visited the trial in Spain for her documentary baby brain, what's really going on. And Lucy Jones is here, the journalist and author whose book Matressens. on the metamorphosis of pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood

was published in 2023 and became an instant classic. Good morning, Lucy. Good morning. So let us talk, Smetha first, about the changes that we know. So this study is utterly fascinating. I met the volunteers, mothers who volunteered to have their brain scanned before, during and after pregnancy five times because they were so eager to find out what happens,

not just to them, but to other women during the brain. this time. And what the research has found, they compared them to about 50 women who haven't been pregnant and weren't pregnant at the time. And they saw this really intriguing pattern with the grey matter in the brain. Now that's the outer layer, the nerve rich layer of the brain. And they saw that it dipped by about 5% during pregnancy before gradually coming back up, though not fully six months after giving birth. And I know when we hear grey matter dips or decrease it. We get a bit scared and we think it's probably instinctively a bad thing. But the scientist, Professor Susanna Carmona, one of the leading scientists in this field, says in this

case, as you said, less is probably more. To think of it, kind of her metaphor is the pruning of a tree, that maybe they're pruning nerve networks and other nerve cells to make the brain more efficient and make it more adapted to motherhood. She's got some really good reasons why she thinks this. For example? Yeah, the women in the study, they all did. questionnaires before, during and after pregnancy. And they found the more the brains changed, the more they saw that dip and recovery, the more the mothers were well bonded

and content with their babies. But also, they see a similar process in adolescence where the grey matter starts to thin and many neuroscientists think this represents a pruning of nerve networks to make the brain more efficient as it matures into adult hold. And finally, her other main reason

is animal research, because, let's face it, as she said, there's a lot more research on animals, pregnant animals, than there is on pregnant humans. And so you have to look to the animal research to see what's going on. And in animals, they see the brain changing in pregnancy and it kind of switches on this maternal or caregiving behaviour.

So for all these reasons, she thinks that this change that they're seeing is a good thing. So I can't remember it was rodents. I can't remember whether there was mice or rats that they were experimenting on. And if these brain changes didn't happen, they didn't have any interest in their offspring. Yeah, I watched a video of some of the research on this.

And when the rodents were not pregnant, they just went past the pup, ignored it completely. And then when researchers gave them some pregnancy hormones that they think switch on these brain changes, suddenly they were making a nest and they were putting the pup in this nest. It was utterly fascinating. It really is.

And, Smith, the story is online as well. At the moment on the BBC, and one of the most red people just really, I suppose, getting into it this morning. You mentioned their adolescence that it is comparable with as well. And I suppose, Svita, I'd be curious why you came to it. Why did you want to look at it? Oh, it's so fascinating. I have two children myself.

And I definitely noticed a change. I felt like a different person. And speaking to the mothers in Spain who took part and mothers in England, they were saying very similar things. And it feels very validating to have this. this science to show that there is a change in the brain and that this can be a change for good. I certainly felt my priority shifting,

like I had new priorities. And for example, that I'd got new skills, but also there were challenges. And to see that it isn't just our bodies that changed. Of course, our brains also change. It's a very validating experience. Yeah, I was interested. There was women that were in a circle chatting about the changes

that they felt. Some of them felt that they were getting forgetful about certain aspects, but perhaps it's about the mundane or the stuff that doesn't really matter if you're trying to keep another little human alive. Exactly. They said, you know what? It was mostly the small stuff and why sweat with the small stuff? Actually, our priorities, our attention has shifted and so even if we're not remembering those things, those things aren't as important as the things that are straight in front of us. And actually within this research, the area of the brain, one of the areas of the brain that changes the most is an area called the default mode network.

And that's kind of about self-perception, how you see yourself, but also altruism and empathy. And the thought is that perhaps our brains as mothers are changed forever in that you are now thinking of someone else, bringing someone else into yourself. And you're sort of prioritising that person. So interesting. Lucy, you must have been fascinated seeing some of this that has been coming out in neuroscience. You were talking about it in metrescence as well. the work of Dr. Susanna Carmona and the Beam of the project have been published since then

but I'd be curious what your thoughts are this morning I can't wait to see the documentary and I think there's it's a really exciting time for this kind of emerging science of metrescence and potrescence the transition to fatherhood and it speaks to

an area of life which has been very neglected and under-acknowledged under explored, underwritten and the focus that we now have on what happens in the brain and the body and to people when they become pregnant is so crucial because

we minimise it so much in our society. We kind of, we idealise motherhood and we kind of romanticise it a bit, but actually the transition to parenthood is a vulnerable time and a woman's risk of depression doubles in the postpartum period. And we're living at a time of really high rates of postpartum mental health problems and stress and exhaustion and loneliness.

So I really welcome all this amazing science by these scientific heroes across the world. And also I think it's important to talk about kind of the social aspect of matressants. It's a very social experience. So tell me more about that. Well, I think, you know, we don't value mothers. We don't value care. Although they are idealised in some forms. Absolutely.

This kind of lip service, I think, to mothers. But we don't actually properly support new parents and new mothers. You know, we have inadequate maternity care, unsafe maternity units, you have inadequate postpartum care, mother and baby units, few or far between. And we, you know, the transition back to work can be a big shock. For many people, you know, that's when the egalitarian office party is over. And, you know, for me, when I became a mother, I was kind of stepping through a portal

into a time where I thought feminism hadn't been realised. And there was a lot more work to do. That portal going from non-mother to mother. Yes. Yeah. So interesting. Just a message coming in from Mandy in Lancashire says, I can't even remember who I was before I had children.

That is my warning. I'm very happy, so I'm not in any way saying it's a bad experience, but physically and mentally it's so overwhelming. You simply become another person, in my opinion. I'm 59 this year and I adore my children in life, but I would try to prepare my daughter far more than I ever was if she were to consider pregnancy. What do you think of that, Lucy?

I think preparing is a really important and really strong point because matrescence and this transition can be a site of a lot of deception actually and misinformation. So, you know, there's plenty of birth trauma and lack of information about the realities of birth, the kind of recovery of birth, breastfeeding, even, you know, the simple fact of what a baby needs. I think we actually kind of, because it's so privatised and we're all in these nuclearized isolated families, it can be quite a shock actually what a baby needs to kind of survive. And I wonder if there's a way to change that. We are also talking about the word matressens.

I mentioned that there's a big campaign, big full page ad in the New York Times, for example, trying to get it into major dictionaries. It's in some, but not all. Emily got in touch. She says it tells you everything you need to know about the patriarchy that there needs to be a campaign to get the word metrescence into the dictionary. Right, and it's 50 years old. Yes, it is not a new word.

years ago. I mean, and I think that that says so much about this kind of invisibleising of it. And the last 50 years, you know, where kind of neoliberal capitalism is kind of the dominant culture. And motherhood, care work, nurture, they aren't profitable. So we don't value them properly. They're kind of hidden. And this word, I think, and this focus on this transition could be really revolutionary. I see, Julia got in touch. So sorry, no, I'm completely against the introduction of new jargon words. that you need a dictionary to understand or spell. Although, as you say, it's not a new word. It's 50 years old.

Metrescent, no thanks. I can't remember which French writer said. Whatever is well understood can be expressed clearly and anything that cannot be expressed clearly is not well understood. Her translation, she says. Here's another. I think the research is so interesting.

Before having my two children, I was ignorantly very dismissive of baby brain. But I've very much experienced it. The few months before having my babies, I'd forget every day-to-day things but be remembering all sorts of random things that we needed to plan for the baby. My youngest is now seven months old

and I'm finally feeling much more back to my usual or before self and less anxious to leave my baby, which I guess is linked to the protective side. We'll never be back to our old selves completely, but that is a lovely feeling. Thank you so much to pregnant people who took part in this amazing research, Sarah, in Solihull. And somewhere, Smeath,

partners of women, female partners of women that are in a same-sex couple that were not pregnant and they tested their brains as well to be able to make some comparisons, I understand. What do they hope to do with this data, Smeda? One of the things they hope to do, and you spoke a little bit about it, Lucy, is to create a map of what happens in pregnancy, a neurological map, because we don't know yet.

We don't have that much neuroscience research on what happens in the brain in pregnancy, because the pregnant brain is also a vulnerable one. It is a time where one in five women get things like postpartum depression. And so if we can work out what goes on, the idea is that hopefully we can also help women when there are complications. So that is one of their main reasons for doing this work. I was also wondering, because many people become pregnant, but do not give birth.

It could be through a variety of things, whether it's miscarriage, abortion, it could be the other end, a heartbreaking stillbirth also. But with their brain, Do we know what happens? This is another area that Susanna really wants to look into. From the research so far, it looks like the brain is changing within the second trimester. Second trimester.

We don't know yet about the first trimester because people aren't scanning within that first trimester. Yet, Manny would know hormones are raging in that first trimester. So the answer is we don't know. And in terms of how long these changes last, that's another really interesting question. Professor Susana Caramona has looked at brains up to two and then six years. A small number of women have continued this research up to six years already. And in their brains you can still see some of these changes. So perhaps pregnancy and motherhood leaves a signature in the brain forever.

What would you like people, Lucy, to know about metressants? I think the word metrescence and the concept of it can be quite transformative because well my sense is since publishing matrescence the book a couple of years ago is that it's a pretty normal experience today to have a baby and feel quite shocked by the experience

whether that's birth or your kind of psychology or your social role your relationships and that's what down Dana Raphael, who coined the term metrescence, she was an anthropologist, was talking about, she was talking about how in most cultures and societies across the world, there is this sense of a kind of newborn mother

and there are rights and rituals in order to kind of support and hold the newborn mother as she cares for the baby. And I think, you know, we've kind of lost sight of that. And metrescent, I think, can normalise this process of transition. Would it have helped you speak though the word or did you know the word? I didn't know the word and absolutely the word would have helped me knowing that there's research in this field would have helped me because it really does feel like a transition and to have the language to talk about it is a huge thing. Because without a word to talk about it, how do you discuss it with people? Exactly. And I think it's a time where actually there's a lot of taboo about talking honestly about the experience of motherhood and the institution of motherhood.

You know, you can feel like if you complain about being a mother, it suggests that you don't love your child. Which is immediately what our listeners felt they had to say. Yeah, absolutely. It's just the default thing you feel that you have to justify. But, you know, we can use the word metrescence and we can critique the institution of motherhood and the systems and the structures. It's not about the children, the children are perfect. But we can, you know, criticize how as a society we're treating mothers and caregivers. And words like metrescence, I think, just give us. give us the language to do that.

And also to say, you know, how's your metrescence going? Or how was your metrescence? I'm thinking of it actually now, just that you say, because, you know, we say, oh, you know, a couple of kids going through adolescence or whatever. Maybe metrescence, it will cut people some slack. Yeah. And I think, you know, it could also be very powerful

because, you know, it's a period which, unfortunately, kind of it's very revealing of the social context. So we can see how. kind of different inequalities across class and race lines play out in that period. We can see how society isn't investing in maternal health or early years childhood. Despite this kind of all this chat about the thousand days, you know, we're very, very not doing a good job at looking after. And of course, the government will push back against that. They would perhaps point to the recruitment drives in midwifery, the independent reviews that they have commissioned to interrogate

standards or indeed the way they're looking at the early years, whether it's childcare as well on the other aspect away from mothers. Matresens, the birth of a mother is the way I saw it described as well, which I think is a lovely way. Lots so many messages coming in. I will get to them throughout the programme. But I do want to thank both of my guests in studio with me today. Lucy Jones, the author of Matresens and Smita Mundasad, who has her film, which is Baby Brain.

What's Really Going On. question mark, which is out today on IPlayer. Thank you both so much. Thank you. Thank you. Now, Gothic is having a moment, whether it's Wuthering Heights or the bride on the big screen or perhaps the lace and velvet that's featured on the runways. Well, there is also now Hester Munson's brand new novel. You might remember her best-selling debut, The Beholders, a Gothic historical novel. In the Nighthag, Hester takes us to 19th century Scotland,

and it explores the budding signs of archaeology, spiritualism and folklore legend. At its heart, it's a question of the role of women in Victorian society. The main character, Lil, is caught between competing worlds. She's looking to make her mark while dealing with the hauntings of her past. Hester told me why she wanted to write the novel and where the idea came from. It was actually a ghost story by A.C. Benson, who was writing at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century. And he had two characters having a very Victorian conversation about psychic phenomena

and spiritualism. And they were asking, should it all be put down to science and let scientists investigate it properly? Or is it the realm of delusional people? Or should it just be left alone? And of course we're having very similar conversations now. But we do have hindsight.

And we do know more than back then. And I thought it would be really interesting to look at the relationship between specifically 19th century science, what was going on with that. And the spiritual world, really, the spiritual lives of people beyond the established church.

and the Christian religion, and particularly from the point of view of a woman, because you had these two things going on. Science was, it had got away from the church and was establishing itself as we know it now, as you know, committed to empirical evidence and rational inquiry. So it was becoming much more independent and lay people were involved.

There were lots of popular science books. Everyone was into it. And then you had this phenomenon of the spiritualist movement in the second half of the century. and that was trying to sort of embrace this version of science and apply it to spiritualism. A lot of people were really interested in it and a lot of women were. But they would look to this shining new science and find it actually turned around to them and said, oh, but not you. You can't study it.

You can't be part of it or contribute to it because science now actually proves that your role is, you know, to reproduce and too much study will make you hysterical and will interfere with your reproductive function. So no. So it must have been incredibly confronting for the women who are alive to it to sort of be looking to this as, you know, this progress for society and finding that it was really grinding them under its heel even more. So I wanted to have a character who was coming from the world of spiritualism, trying to embrace science and gets into archaeology and, yeah, just what that that would have been like. And so that character that we meet is the female protagonist, Lil, tell you. Tell us a little bit about her. Do you consider her a typical Victorian woman? No, not at all. So I gave her a very unusual upbringing.

So she's raised by a spiritualist medium to be a medium. And her mother is she puts on fake sances in order to secure them in income. Which I loved reading about it. It was like being in a house of horrors. It was very fun to write. But she's also claiming to have real gifts. to be genuinely able to channel spirits. And she insists the same thing for Lil as well.

But Lil, and also it's a very, it's not a happy household, it's very controlling. And Lil is, there's a sexual threat from her tutor, which is increasing. And she doesn't trust that her mother will protect her because her mother needs this man to sort of raise her profile as a medium. So she eventually manages to escape and becomes a sketch artist to begin with and then assistant to archaeologists. And she thinks she's found the antidote to spiritualism. She thinks if she can just dig up enough bones,

she can prove to herself that spirits don't exist. But her problem is that she is haunted herself at night by this figure, which we would now understand to be sleep paralysis. But at the time it wasn't understood. It's when the mind wakes up before the body does. There's a disconnect. Absolutely terrifying. Yeah, really, really horrifying.

So you're paralyzed, but you're awake. and it can induce really vivid hallucinations, that horrifying hallucinations. And it's often of a dark figure, which, yeah, in a lot of folklore is known as the night hag. Hence the new of the book. Yes, exactly. I was like, yes, title.

So Lil, while she's desperately trying to find a non-supernatural explanation for what she's experiencing it, even while she's struggling to shake the belief that her mother instilled in her, that it is something supernatural, and it's actually warning her. of danger. And of course she's a Gothic heroine, so there is something coming for her. But it's not necessarily exactly what she thinks it is.

I'm going to ask you to read a passage from the beginning of your novel. This feature is Lil, and the setting is a burial ground which she is helping to excavate in Scotland. Yes. So just to give the background to it, it's the burial mound that are living next to, and it's been sabotaged in the night. The stakes that were holding up the sides of the trenches have been knocked out. and the tarpaulin's ripped away. And because the weather's so bad, the trenches have collapsed inward. So it's all just mud.

But she sees there's a flash of sunlight and it glints off something. So she goes to try and reach it, but it's a bit too far. So she's sort of reaching out and loses her balance. Her hand and knee plunged into earth as grasping as quicksand. Soil was slipping under her, but she lunged again for where the flash had been, committing her whole body. Her fingers found it. A small, flat triangle, no bigger than a thumbnail.

They pinched, hard, thin, metallic maybe, and teased out a larger triangle the size of a small hand. Lil's heart leapt, but she was stuck. The earth cleaved to her as if it would hold her fast. She tried to raise herself onto hands and knees, but slipped, squirming like something slick and newborn. A nameless fear swept over her, and instinctively she strained her neck to look behind her,

sweat pushed through her skin. She could feel panic rising, blind and bullheaded and looked around wildly for something to hold on to. The mound reared over her, a hulk of earth, and at the top, rising out of it and black against the light, was a shape, a dark figure. It's quite a cliffhanger. You get a sense of the unnerving atmosphere of the book,

which, I mean, I feel cold even sometimes when I read certain parts of it. But that theme of archaeology, mentioned it they're kind of attached to science, shall we say, or budding scientists at the time. But there wouldn't have been very many women, would there? No, not at all. And in fact, archaeology hadn't become professional really at all. People were really trying to make it professional, but it was still in the domain of amateurs and enthusiasts, which was all men of means who had the time, and they would hire workers and have them just sort of break open the ground. And it was all about the artifacts

and the finds that people were interested in. And yes, there was no place for women that at all unless some women married archaeologists who were happy to work alongside them. And actually a few women had really interesting but mostly invisible careers that way. Or if you were a woman and had your own land and were able to do what you wanted on it, then you could pursue it. And then there were some exceptions, very few, but of women, again, they would have means and social standing usually who just had the goodwill of men who were in a position of power and were able to appoint them.

later on when it did become more professional to use them or let them study. I gave Lil her situation that she's taken up by a husband and wife team to be their sketch artist and then just becomes more and more useful to them as an actual archaeologist, which I think would make

she'd have been very exceptional, but it's just about plausible. We mentioned sleep paralysis earlier. What do you know about it? Or did you know about it? I didn't know about it until I was, living in London with a flatmate who suffered from it and she would come downstairs and just tell us the most amazing things that had happened to her. You know, she would have a male figure that would come

and strangle her, but she also had, you know, animals trampling her. There'd be bugs on the ceiling falling onto her face. Sometimes it's auditory, shouting. Absolutely terrifying. You know, it's just be at breakfast going, oh yeah, this happened. But she was just used to it. And she knew that she knew what It was. Yeah, just let it pass. But the stories obviously stayed with you. Yeah, when I heard that, I thought, oh. And it made me realize that it had happened to me once.

Many years ago, I hadn't realized what it was. But I thought I'd had a full-blown panic attack somehow in my sleep and that it had continued as I'd woken up. So it was good to have had that direct experience of it. And it was terrifying. So sleep paralysis really fitted the bill of looking at where science and folklore sort of smushed together. Because like I said in the 19th century,

they didn't understand it. Doctors, they understood that it was something physical that was affecting the mind, but they talked about things like stagnation of the blood or vapours rising from the stomach. Whereas for people who are experiencing it tended to think of it as being attacked by a malevolent entity,

because that's exactly what it feels like. So it's just an interesting sort of collision of those worlds. So that is one creative influence, shall we say? your roommate from that time. What are your other ones? Particularly with the folklore, because to begin with, once I'd found out what the night hag was,

and I thought, oh, brilliant, but I wasn't going to really include the hags and the entities into the story too much. And I called Lil, she's named Lilith, who's one of these entities with a very long career, as it were. But that was a kind of nod to that side of things. But once I'd discovered about the night hag,

Hags started popping up all over and I was reading more and more and more folklore and got more and more interested in that and they sort of crowded into the novel. And at first I thought, gosh, I'm overhagging this. Is it just because I'm interested in them? Exactly. And then I realized that no, they were kind of serving another function because the characters themselves kind of have that echo of that hag spirit of they operate outside of society really.

But they're not victims. They're not sort of clawing to get back in. They've got power and they've got agency. And I started to realize that the hags, because there's so many of them, and a lot of them are connected with sleep paralysis because it was always historically, it was sort of seen as a woman,

which is interesting because most of the modern accounts I've heard people, especially women, talk about, it's men that they're hallucinating. And, yeah, I thought the hags started to represent that part of everyone really that knows the, truth that is and especially for women in the 19th century who had all this information coming at them saying what they were and denying them any other side of themselves except this reproductive

and nurturing and caring side to themselves and the hags in the novel anyway sort of represented the other side the non-nurturing the destructive the powerful and in a way it kind of comes to represent that feeling and that instinct inside of people that allows them to rebel even when everything in society is telling you the opposite. Because the more I write about the 19th century, the more amazed I am that we've come as far as we have. This is not really that far away. It's not. It was yesterday.

And yeah, it's really, yeah, it's kind of chilling how close it is. The Gothic genre, however, it does feel very in vogue at the moment. If we mention Wuthering Heights, for example, the film adaptation, people have lots of opinions on that. But why do you think that genre has such appeal? I think, because it's so high. I think it's a way of exploring really unpalatable subjects and scary things, but it's at a little bit of a distance.

The author Hester Musten and her book, her new book, The Nighthag, is out now. Thanks for all your messages coming in. Here's another on Matrescent. For me, it involved all the profound shifts and priorities that are being discussed. My laser focus on the baby, my intuitive understanding of what he's. He needed, surprised me. It was a shock to my staunch feminist principles to see that my lovely supportive husband

just didn't get the cues the way I did. I thought we'd learn together how to mind our baby. What lived experience showed me was that I knew instinctively and he had to learn. We achieved the balance that works for us, but it took much more time than I expected, exclamation point. 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. Now, I want to move. on to a major global study that says more than a quarter of healthy years lost to breast cancer could be prevented through lifestyle changes like cutting red meat down or staying active

or by not smoking. The Lancet Oncology analysis shows cases worldwide are set to rise by a third to reach over 3.5 million by the year 2050. Well, I have a number of guests that are going to speak to us about this this morning. I'm joined by Professor Jayant Wadilla, who is Professor of surgery and oncology at University College London. We also have Dr. Liz O'Rourden, a former breast cancer surgeon who herself has had breast cancer and is currently in remission. I'm very glad to hear that, Liz. Let me begin, Professor Giant with you.

How do you understand the main takeaways of this new research? Thank you. Thank you very much for having me. Well, this is a very interesting research because it does tell one of the main takeaways is actually about how the incidence in the higher socioeconomic countries is stable and mortality is reducing but that in lower economic countries it is going up and mortality is also going up. So this means that probably the increase change in lifestyle in the lower economic countries to more Western lifestyle has probably caused increase in incidence and that has not,

unfortunately been compensated by improved treatments which are not always available there, which is by the mortality is also going up. The lifestyle changes impact 28% of the incidence, but that means 70% we don't know what does it. We continue to improve treatments, but one can make a big difference by improving lifestyle, lifestyle, such as increasing fruits, vegetables and nuts and taking less than 20% calories from fat, tobacco use is a major new factor which has been identified here. Tobacco use, we know, causes a lot of harm and responsible for premature deaths in half people who use tobacco.

And in case of breast cancer, smokers face a much higher risk of having lung cancers when they get radiotherapy. So when they get radiotherapy during surgery, that is reduced. And this is one of the new things that is here, the tobacco use. And the tobacco. It would make a big difference. Let me jump in, though. I want to move over to you, Dr. Lizaroden, for a moment.

What surprised you when you saw the research? I think I was surprised to see that tobacco and red meat are risk factors for breast cancer. And it's quite scary because I may think I got breast cancer because I had a bacon sandwich every weekend as a junior doctor. And I think it's, we know lifestyle factors reduce the risk of getting cancer. But the effect on an individual person is really small. If you're eating two bacon sandwiches a day, your risk may go up by 11%. But that's actually an extra one woman in 1,000 if you're 40. So the impact for me as a woman is small.

But if you take that globally, we can prevent millions of breast cancers. But these boring lifestyle factors, they're not sexy, they're not exciting, and it's really hard to push that message home. But we also know for people listening that following these lifestyle factors after diagnosis can also reduce the risk of breast cancer coming back. That's interesting as well. what about that, Professor, about avoiding breast cancer completely when it comes to lifestyle factors and the fact of perhaps employing some of these methods after recovering from breast cancer?

Yes, that would have some impact, although we don't have definite evidence about it, but what has been shown is doing more exercise, so it will certainly improve outcomes from breast cancer. Stopping smoking would make a big difference. improving your diet and reducing your body mass index can make a difference. But now we have better new drugs that can also reduce the weight reduction is difficult, has always been difficult. And that could make the new methods of reducing weight could also make a difference. So all of this and stopping alcohol, alcohol, unfortunately, doesn't have a lower limit

where it doesn't increase the risk of breast cancer. And smoking will increase the risk of getting relapse of lung cancer, of breast cancer in the lungs particularly. So all of these factors after having breast cancer, one might be more motivated to employ them, as Liz said, may also an important point. However, not to get it would be ideal. Of course.

Peer pressure of improving lifestyle, but also legislation to improve what is on the shelves from childhood onwards, less sugar in the food that we get. Take away tobacco. Legislate increase the price of smoking cigarettes and promote healthy lifestyle where there is more walking and more daily activity could make a big difference. And you haven't spoken extensively about red meat consumption because that did grab a lot of the headlines, Professor, and they said, hi, red meat consumption. I didn't read exactly how much that is or what it means. Yeah, it doesn't specify that.

I couldn't find that. I've read it quickly. I couldn't find exactly what the evidence for red meat was. But in some ways, red meat also increases risk of colorectal cancer. So reducing red meat will have impact on environment as well. So that is not a bad goal to have in general anyway. But by definition, if you increase, reduce red meat, you would have more fruits and vegetables and nuts. Let me turn back to Liz there for a moment. Your thoughts on red meat? So we know that if you eat more than 500 grams of red meat a week, that's generally two or three portions a week. That does increase the risk of bowel cancer and breast cancer. It's because of the chemicals in red blood cells that can damage the lining of the bowel. But that's eating four or five portions of red meat a week every meat for several years.

It's still a very good source of iron and vitamin and B12. So we're not saying don't eat it. Just eat it as part of a varied diet. I do want to say as well. The last month the government announced its 10-year cancer strategy. It said it will herald the fastest improvement in cancer outcomes this century. Let me bring in Claire Rowney, Debt Breast Cancer Now's chief executive, who has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer.

I'm sorry to hear that, Claire. And thank you very much for joining us, for being open to speak about it as well. I'm sure it will help people. How are you seeing some of the news that you're hearing this morning? Well, I mean, I think the report is really interesting. and as Liz and Professor Giant have spoken about, there's some really interesting new data, particularly around tobacco and red meat,

directly linked to breast cancer. I think it's also worth saying, and it's really important to remember that breast cancer is influenced by a number of factors. So 25%, you know, this report is showing 25% of risks can be reduced by reducing red meat, not smoking and so on, but things like genetic, environmental factors. I mean, the height that you grow to,

when you start your periods, whether or not you're able to breastfeed, are all factors as well. So I think we have to be careful about kind of blaming women for developing breast cancer. There are factors that we can do to reduce it. And I think that's really what I've taken away from the report. Yes, indeed. That is something, Liz, isn't it, potentially people hearing it like,

you're at fault because you did this? I don't want anyone to feel breast cancer is their fault. I kind of imagine breast cancer is 10 spelling mistakes in the cell and not exercising and drinking and being overweight may cause three or four of them, but the rest are generally bad luck and down to chance. I was a fit, healthy triathlete and I got breast cancer. There are teetotal vegan marathon runners who still get it. So you can reduce your risk, but nothing can stop it.

And that's why, Claire will go on to say, checking every month and going for your mammograms so we can find it at an earlier stage and give you the best chance of a cure is so important. Because I was seeing a figure of the women being called for mammograms that it was only about 60% you're probably familiar with that, Claire, that figure. Indeed, yes.

So actually, new data came out from NHS England just at the end of last week, which showed across all age groups around 70% are attending, which is a slight improvement on the year before, which is right. But in the very key 50 to 54-year-old age bracket, that is as low as 63%. So women in general are called up 50 for their first screen. and then every three years until their 70th birthday. Why the 63% is a worrying number is if people don't attend their first screening,

they're less likely to attend subsequent screening. So the trajectory for women in that 50 to 54 year age group isn't good. And the reason we care about it is if you're diagnosed at stage one, so very early, your survival rates are really high, like 98%. If you are diagnosed at stage four, so that's when a cancer has spread to another part of your body, your survival rate over five years is just 27%. So there's a really stark difference in terms of outcomes based on when you get your diagnosis. And you were diagnosed, as I mentioned, with breast cancer in October, I believe, of last year.

And, you know, it's quite something really to go public with it. And I'm just wondering about your decision to share that experience. Well, yeah, I mean, it was an extraordinary experience. I've been CEO of breast cancer now for a little while, went for my standard mammogram, as you'd expect. I attended my screening when I got invited. Hadn't felt alarm, didn't feel, you know, had no signs and symptoms at all, was recalled and was eventually diagnosed with stage one breast cancer. So I consider myself very fortunate that it was caught very early. It meant that my treatment was really straightforward. So just surgery and radiotherapy. I actually had to take very little time off work.

It caused very little disruption to my life. And, you know, as the CEO of breast cancer now, I suppose it's not something I'd have chosen, but I do consider it a bit privileged to understand now much more about what it's like to hear those words and to be put on a cancer pathway. Yes. And I'm just wondering what you might say to women that maybe the letter came in, but they haven't acted on it. yet? Well, I mean, I would talk about the statistics about early diagnosis, and I would say there are lots of reasons people don't attend. Sometimes it's time, sometimes it's about, you know, we know that people in lower socioeconomic groups, for example, don't want to lose kind of hourly

paid work to attend. We also know that there are different communities that feel embarrassed or wary about attending a mammogram. And some people are worried about it because they think it might hurt. What we say is everyone's experience is individual, but it's really important. About a third of all breast cancer are diagnosed through these standard mammograms. And it's a really effective way of catching breast cancer in a way that makes it a bit of a blip in your life rather than the story of the rest of your life because you have to have so much ongoing treatment. Claire Rowney is Breast Cancer Now's chief executive. Thank you very much for speaking to us. And I also I want to thank my guest, Professor J. Ann Wadiah and Dr. Liz O'Rearden.

If you'd like to get in touch with the program today, 844 is one way to do it. Many of you have, particularly about matressins. Here's a story coming in from, let me see, Amanda, who says, I often tell my child that after I gave birth, it was as though a switch had been flipped in my brain. I had suffered from severe depression before birth as a survivor of childhood abuse, just disappeared. Maybe a feeling that I could break the cycle finally. I had a very difficult pregnancy and a premature

baby via emergency cesarean. I realised that I was being closely watched postpartum for signs of postnatal depression, but I was just ecstatic and tightly bonded. Glad to hear it. Thanks Amanda, 848444. If you would like to get in touch. Now, have you ever tried humming or gargling

water to get back to sleep when you wake in the middle of the night? I am being serious. In the latest episode of The Woman's Hour Guide to Life, which is all about taking the stress out of getting your sleep. Dr. Anita Mitra explains to me why stimulating the vagus nerve can help us if we wake at night time. And sleep physiologist Stephanie Romosefsky shares some more of her sleep tips. If I wake up in the night, you know, it's the classic three, four o'clock in the morning kind of thing. I gargle water. And so the reason that this can be quite helpful is because the

vagus nerve runs through the back of our throat. And so if you gargle or even hum, then what it does is it stimulates it and tells your body, you can relax, everything's okay, you can go back to sleep. If your mind is whirring, personally for me it really works. I think, I don't know, you have to give it a go, but see what you think. Use sleep trackers with caution. Okay, yes. So there are so many ways that you can track your sleep. I have to be honest with you. I do use a sleep tracking app. I'm also putting my hand up here. If you look at the data you get, some mornings, you wake up and you think, oh, I feel great. And your sleep tracker says, no, terrible night. And that will just totally reframe how you feel throughout the day. And I think there's so many

different health apps these days. And I think because of them, we've stopped listening to our own bodies and how we actually feel. That is from the latest episode of The Woman's Hour Guide to Life. You can find it on BBC Sounds. Just go to the Woman's Hour feed, click on the banner, and then you will find the Woman's Hour Guide to Life. Another couple of messages. As a mum to a two-year-old and a five-month-old, I notice my ability to pick up on small changes in my environment and in my children is heightened. I'm much more able to keep a lot of information in my head about my life and their lives than I could ever have done pre-pregnancy. But I feel embarrassed that my ability to remember information about the wider world and even to find it interesting has decreased. It makes me feel self-absorbed.

My hope is that I will keep my new skills, but also one day be able to have a proper conversation about things beyond sleep cycles, balance bikes, and doctors' appointments. Well, another from another listener who says, very interesting discussion of motherhood today. Thank you. I'm also thinking about those mothers in conflict zones today. Just thinking about the wider world as well.

8444 if you'd like to get in touch. Now, last week, news broke off the killing of one of Mexico's most dangerous men. He's known as El Mentiono. He was killed by the Mexican military. He ran one of Mexico's most powerful drug cartels, the Jalisco Cartel New Generation. In response, members of his cartel torch businesses and buses across the country. You might have seen some of those pictures. But among the burnt-out cars, a new wave of posters appeared, with the names and the faces of

some of Mexico's 130,000 people who were either missing or disappeared. that was a tactic used by criminal cartels. The people taping their faces to the wall are often their mothers, part of groups that are fighting to find out what happened to their loved ones. They're known as Madres Buscators or searching mothers.

We're joined now by freelance journalist Andalusia Solof in Mexico City. She's been following stories such as these for years. You're very welcome to Women's Era, Andalusia. Thank you for joining us. I know it's very early where you are. How would you describe the situation now Jalisco a few days after

a few days after the violence that we saw I suppose online and on TVs and in the papers. Yes, thanks so much for having me on and for in this tumultuous world that we live in still talking about this issue because it is a little over one week after the killing of El Mento and this explosion of violence and because of all, of course, that's happening in the world,

have stopped talking about it. But of course, it still affects our lives here in Mexico. And I think it's important to point out that the violence that stopped was this burst of violence of seeing, you know, these stores attacked and buses on fire on major highways and road blockades. But the violence of close to 40 people that go missing every single day, that violence has not stopped. That violence continues. The violence that affects these mothers of not knowing whether their children are alive or dead, not knowing if when they are going out in brigades and digging in the ground with a piece of rebar to see if they smell dead bodies in the ground, when they stick it in and to know if that dead body or the few bones that are left are their children, that violence

persist. And there are over 130,000 disappeared people in Mexico. It is a crisis that has been growing and growing and even been recognized by international bodies like the United Nations. But unfortunately, the Mexican government does not really have the interest in solving this crisis, and especially on a local level. They do not try to solve it. Why are these people disappeared, if it's possible to know? That is a very good question and it is a question we don't know the answer to in many of these cases

because there is no justice. The people who disappear them are not taken to trial, but that is also something that lets us understand a little of why they are disappeared because it is easier to disappear someone which means that you dump their body somewhere or even in the worst cases that they are.

are dissolved in acid. And therefore, there is no trace of them. It is harder to prosecute the criminal elements who executed this crime. And therefore, that is one of the reasons that people are disappeared. Also, sometimes we saw in Halisco, this was also international news. Last year, there was the discovery of a ranch in Teutlian, Halisco, close to the city of Guadalajara, which is soon to be a host city of the World Cup in Mexico. And there were over 1,800 pieces of clothing that were found at this ranch

and also bones and notebooks. And it was a belief that it was a center for forced recruitment where largely young men responded to job ads and then were forcibly recruited into the cartel. Just this week, a new website was launched where family members can search for their loved ones by looking online and seeing these 1,800 items of clothing to see if they could find their children there.

So sad. And it gives us, of course, people are going missing or being disappeared with this backdrop of violence from the drug cartels that are taking more power or control. I want to play a clip of Rinalda, who leads a group called Mothers Fighting Back in the North of Mexico. She recently spoke to my colleague, Quentin Somerville. Her teenage son disappeared when he was 16. I wake up every day and I ask God, tell me why I'm here.

And what gives me strength is realizing that no one else is going to look for them. I realize it because no one is moving to search for the disappeared in Sinaloa. And a mother will always look for her child. No matter if it's to the ends of the earth, she will look. It's been five years since he's been gone. Are you ever going to give up looking for him? It's something I ask myself very often. But I've already found my son in the 250 bodies I've located

and in the 30-something people I found alive. They are my children too. And the children of all the families who come to ask me for help become my children. children. My son is there in each and every one of them. Distressing testimony, as is this story. We're speaking with Andalusia. You have covered these searches over a number of years, Andalusia. I'm wondering what else the mothers have told you about what they're trying to achieve. Yes, I have been covering disappearances for the past 15 years in Mexico. I reported extensively on the case of of 43 disappeared students from the Aitinape Teacher College, which was back in 2014.

And in that case, it was when I first started going on these search brigades where the families comb the forest, they comb the mountains looking in the ground to see where there might have been some of the earth removed. And they also get anonymous tips. That's why they put up these posters, because the posters often help that sometimes, sometimes there's someone that is part of a criminal organization and they give them anonymous tip. And that is how they end up finding the remains of the disappeared. And one thing that we could hear someone in that audio is how she looks every single day.

But it's every single day when you're looking for the disappeared, your disappeared loved one, you say, do I actually want to find them in this clandestine grave? Because it gives them closure. Then you might have a grave that you can go and you can warrant. at, but at the same time, it's the most horrible thing in the world to think that that is where your loved one ended up. And I also, it's important to mention there's even ones in Mexico City. I went on one in that Ahusco forest and the search for this young woman, Pamela Gallardo, who had gone to a rave in the forest with her boyfriend, with her friends. She never came home.

And her mother repeatedly talks about how the government has not wanted to search for her, the government that she had to go and work with essentially hackers even trying to find out where the cell phone was and go and find the cell phone of her daughter, but that the government did not do it and that they repeatedly tell families when they report a missing loved one that they need to wait for 72 hours, which is not true, and that diminishes the possibilities of finding them. Pamela has not been found, but on these searches in that Husko forest with hundreds of people volunteering to rake the forest and to dig, they have found a few of the remains of other women

who went disappeared in that forest. Yeah, very, very distressing details. I will say that the Mexican government say they've sent thousands of troops to the regions that are hardest hit by cartel violence. They take steps like setting up checkpoints and roads, they say to crack down on that violence. There is the fentanyl drug trade,

that fuels a lot of the violence. The Mexican government says it's made progress in its fight against drug trafficking and believes it has cut the fentanyl supply to the United States significantly. You mentioned Halisco, you mentioned the ranch following the discovery of human remains and personal objects there.

Mexico's president, Claudio Scheinbaum, announced a six-action plan in March to fight their crime off disappearances across Mexico. I know, Andalusia, you feel that that is not enough at the moment in our last 10 seconds. Sure. Actually, Claudio Shandam just went to speak in Masatlands, Tina Loa, the other day. And during her visit, a searching mother was actually murdered, which is unfortunately something that happens.

As they're searching for their children, criminal elements often kill them so that they don't actually find them, which is even worse. Let me leave it there. And Alessia Salof, freelance journalist based in Mexico City. Thank you so much. Do join Anita tomorrow. She's going to be talking. about the new drama, a woman of substance. Do join her for that. I'll see you soon. That's all for 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 a 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. I went, what do you mean? You went, you'll find out soon enough. And to provide useful tools and advice to tackle the.

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. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Uh-mm. 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 a... 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.