Woman's Hour - Nadiya Hussain, Women's reproductive survey, The Knock, AI and IVF, Arlo Parks

Episode Date: September 16, 2023

Since winning the Great British Bake Off in 2015, Nadiya Hussain has published seven cookery books, presented numerous TV shows and been awarded an MBE for services to broadcasting and the culinary arts. Nadiya joins Anita Rani to talk about her latest book and BBC Two series, Nadiya’s Simple Spices. She also celebrates the women in her family. A survey launched last week by the Government is calling on women in England aged 16 to 55 to share their experiences of reproductive health - from periods, contraception to pregnancy and the menopause. But the decision to only speak to women up to the age of 55 has provoked a backlash. Dr Shazia Malik, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist and a sub-specialist in reproductive medicine, gives her reaction. In a new series called The Knock, we’ve heard the stories of two women whose lives were changed when they were told that a loved one had been arrested for sexual offences against children. Deborah Denis, Chief Executive of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, and Rachel Armitage, Professor of Criminology the University of Huddersfield spoke about the impact of 'the knock' on the families and friends of men arrested for these crimes. Some British women are now being offered IVF treatment using artificial intelligence. How might AI improve the chances of a successful pregnancy? Suzanne Cawood, Director of Embryology at the Centre for Reproductive and Genetic Health, explains. Mercury Prize-winning musician Arlo Parks has turned her hand to poetry with her debut book, The Magic Border. It combines original poetry, song lyrics and images.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Dianne McGregor

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour with me, Anita Rani. Coming up, the landmark government survey of women's health in England has sparked a backlash for excluding women aged over 55. British Bake Off winner Nadia Hussain on her new cookbook All About Spices and celebrating the women in her life. And could AI improve the chances of a successful pregnancy with IVF? Plus, the Mercury Prize winning singer-songwriter

Arlo Parks on her debut poetry collection. But first, a survey launched last week by the government is calling on women in England aged 16 to 55 to share their experiences of reproductive health from periods, contraception to pregnancy and the menopause. The responses to this landmark survey will shape future policy on women's health as current disparities in women's health across England mean there are far too many cases where women's voices are not being heard. But the decision to only speak to women up to the age of 55 has provoked a backlash. Dr Shazia Malik is a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist and a subspecialist in reproductive medicine. What did she make of the decision? I'm going to look at it from both sides. Okay. And I'm not involved in the study. But if I was looking at it from what they appear to be seeking to look at. So they've titled it reproductive health or reproductive choices for women. So your reproductive life as such is defined as when you start your periods until you stop your periods and reach the menopause.

And medically speaking, we classify postmenopausal health as post-reproductive health. So if you look at seminars that I might go to on the menopause, they're classified as post-reproductive health. So I suspect this is how the government have tried to classify it. But of course, if you look at the study, I don't know if you've had a look at the study. I did actually, I went online this morning, I kind of went through, it was different to what I expected. Well, it's different to what I expected as well. And I've gone on the study. Maybe we should describe it for anybody who hasn't clicked through yet. First of all, if you click on it, so it's not as easy to find as you might think, although other websites have highlighted it. But if you click on it, it really is just a fact finding exercise rather than giving you a lot of space to talk about whether you identify as a woman what your age group is

if you're married you know what your experiences are it really is just questions about have you accessed an abortion service or sexual health have you had a heavy period in the past year do you say that you've got endometriosis pcos or any several other conditions. And of course, you might say you have it. But if you came and saw me in the clinic, I might tell you, well, actually, you know, you don't have it because we do the right tests. And then at the end, it will ask you some questions about, you know, do you have any specific experiences? But it does actually talk about things like menopause and urinary incontinence as well. So it leads you according to how you answer the questions and how you identify your symptoms and social criteria.

But if it's talking about urinary incontinence and menopause, then it is missing out women who've just been through the menopause or are actually still experiencing those problems. And urinary incontinence, in my experience as a medic in that field, is related quite often to women who either have gone through vaginal childbirth or are postmenopausal. So you are automatically excluding a lot of women who are postmenopausal, who are the ones who experience those symptoms. So if I was looking at it from the government, they're defining it as reproductive health, which stops when you go through the menopause. If I'm looking at it as a woman and as a mother, in fact, of course it doesn't stop. And if you want healthily reproductive

choices, surely what we accessed or what we were taught or what we suffered in our reproductive years will, of course, define our health, our attitudes, what we pass on to future generations, post-reproductive years. So, again, you know, although there's a lot of interest even from government around the menopause, how women experience it, how the workplace deals with it. I mean, I feel as a woman and I I am postmenopausal, you know, you've suddenly been silenced again, unless you're just being asked about the menopause. I have two teenage daughters, what I tell them surely will influence their choices, will influence how they access healthcare, and their attitudes to things like contraception. So if we're looking at 18 to 24 year olds, for example, and I meet them in my clinic, I have lots of mothers who bring their daughters to things like contraception. So if we're looking at 18 to 24-year-olds, for example,

and I meet them in my clinic, I have lots of mothers who bring their daughters to me to discuss contraception, sexual health. You know, what do we see all the time? TikTok, Instagram is telling you hormonal contraception is harmful, you mustn't use it. This is a story I saw that there is basically a trend on some of the social media sites. It's a massive trend I see it all the time and surely that will impact on unwanted pregnancies.

And I should say that there is no medical evidence within these videos that are circulating although there's lots of questions about the hormonal pill but this is what you're referring to. It is. You know, this study isn't going to look at that. And then, of course, my other concern is that the government only in 2021 had a massive survey on, it was called something like, you know, women, let's talk about it. It wasn't that different to this survey. It was about 100,000 women, 90% of whom were white, about 60, 70% of whom were in the southeast. And if we're talking about discrepancies in accessing health care, education in health care, having a voice, then how are we going to make sure that this survey is different to the last one where there was about 3% of women from ethnic minorities almost none from women post-60

and very few from the north-west and north-east of England. And that is part of the reason that we're speaking about it today on Women's Hour so people realise that it is there and findable and can be filled out. There are questions then about what it might achieve because the government is saying to minimise those disparities. Why are there such disparities for women's health across England? It's obviously very complicated, but I grew up in a small town in Lancashire in northwest England.

And where I grew up, my parents were local GPs they looked after generations of people for about 30-40 years and there was a large southeast Asian population. My mum was 83 still runs a charity organisation helping local women with their issues so I can tell you from my experiences if we look at ethnic minority women, and not just those, but women who live in very deprived areas, they're busy bringing up their children. They're busy surviving day to day. Most of them, if you come from ethnic minority circumstances, you know, some of them won't speak English, they may be older, there's lots of taboos about talking about sexual health, the menopause doesn't get talked about at all. They will for

sure be illiterate, most of them in terms of IT. And unless their daughter comes home and says, mum, let's do this survey, they're never going to A, know about it, B, access it, or have a voice. If we look at outcomes in childbirth in this country, we've known for a long, long time that the risk of stillbirth, the risk of miscarriage, the risk of postnatal depression is far, far higher in black women and women of other ethnic minorities. So all the data is already there. So if we're looking at diabetes in pregnancy, miscarriages, accessing contraception, abortion rates, I think the data is already there.

So we need to make sure that those women have a voice, but also we talk about what we do next to make a difference a couple of messages coming in just be curious for your thoughts on them one it's a mistake not talking to over 55s as our generation were probably the most ignored i'm 68 had undiagnosed endometriosis for many years causing a lot of damage which i still have ongoing problems with now it wasn't recognized it's still taking years for women to get diagnosed. My feedback could be valuable for future provision. Thanks, says V.

Another, Gillian. My menopause did not stop until I was 59. So she's not postmenopausal at 55 or 56. So the average age of the menopause in the UK is 51, but there is a significant proportion of women. So about 80% of women will go through the menopause in the UK is 51 but there is a significant proportion of women so about 80% of women will go through the menopause by 51 but 20% of women that's quite a lot of women won't have gone through it at 51 and there is a small proportion who go through it later and again you can see that so some families a lot all the women have a later menopause.

Some women from Afro-Caribbean backgrounds, I see them have a later menopause as well. So of course, they're not going to be included in that study, are they? Dr Shazia Malik talking to Nula. The Reproductive Health Survey for England 2023 is open for a few more weeks if you'd like to contribute. A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said, We have made it clear in our Women's Health Strategy for England that we're committed to improving the healthcare of women of all ages. The design of the survey was developed by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. They engaged a number of stakeholders on what age range the responders would deliver the survey's objectives following a pilot of the survey in 2021.

There will be further research in due course that looks at the health needs of different groups of women. Since winning the Great British Bake Off in 2015, Nadia Hussain has published seven cookery books, presented numerous TV shows and has been awarded an MBE for services to broadcasting and culinary arts. Her latest book and BBC Two series, Nadia's Simple Spices, is the first to concentrate exclusively on recipes using spices from her Bangladeshi heritage. So first, I asked her why a book about spices. I use spices in a lot of my recipes, but I wanted to dedicate this one specifically to the way my mum cooks and the way my nan my nan cooks also i think lots of people think spices are scary and they mix the two up they think spices and spicy are the same thing and they're not they're completely different you know that i know that but lots of people think well you grew up with spices so of course you know that but

it isn't complicated eight spices yes my grandma uses it. Tell us which eight. So four whole spices. We've got cardamom, cinnamon, fennel and bay leaves. And then we've got the four ground spices, which are chili, turmeric, cumin and curry powder. That's it. And I can guarantee a lot of you are listening and thinking, oh, I already have like six of those. So if you already have them, all you need is a few more. And you can make every single recipe in the book. And that's I think the difference is that you're not going to get spices to do one recipe, you're getting spices to do the entire book.

Where do you even start coming up with the ideas? This one was easy, because there's lots of stuff that I do all the time. But I think that's just the way my mind works. I always talk about this grey area. You know, I grew up in a Bangladeshi home in Britain. And in some ways, as I've become older, I've realised that I've worked my whole life trying to fit into either or group. Like I've tried really hard to be really British, or I've tried really hard to be Bangladeshi. And then actually, the reality is that I'm a first generation immigrant, I'm never going to fit into either of those. I'm never going to be Bangladeshi enough, I'm never going to be British enough. And there's always going to be someone from either group questioning me

or asking or talking about or kind of questioning my authenticity. So I kind of live in this grey area where I get to do whatever I like. And when did you fully accept that that's where you live? When did you realise you need to stop trying to fit? At the beginning of my career, where it was a lot of push and pull, where I kind of like, am I British? Am I Bangladeshi? What am I doing? Where do I belong? I think at the beginning of my career, whilst writing, I'd realised that actually, I'm going to have this push and pull my whole life. So I've got

to find a space where I'm really happy and I'm really comfortable. And I think at the very beginning of my career, I realised that I'm going to sit in this grey area where purists don't live, where there are no rules, where I can do whatever I like. And I think a lot of us, I think anyone listening as well, I think there are loads of people out there who will think, actually, I get it. I think I need to stop the push and pull and just live in this grey space. It takes a lot of confidence to live in that grey space. Yeah, I mean, I say it's the grey space, but really it's pretty colourful. Yeah, of course, there's nothing grey. No, there's nothing grey about it. It's fun.

Just owning who you are. Yeah, it's owning who I am. And actually, like, the second I stopped trying to be a part of either or group, I started to just really live and just be comfortable in who I am. I'm going to take you back eight years. Yeah. That's all. Yeah. yeah that's all yeah I mean does it feel like a long time or is it flown by in eight years Nadia I feel like your life is some kind of fairy tale that we've watched unfold in front of us I think time flies when you're having fun I'm having a great time I mean I never wanted to

do this job it kind of fell into my lap and I thought okay I'll give it a go but I did you know I remember moments where I was like I kind of feel sorry for my agent she was never going to get me any work and she'll never earn a penny. And I thought, never mind. And there we are. We have this amazing team, Muslim woman, Jewish woman, and we just take everything on. And yeah, so at the very beginning, I thought this is not going to ever happen. And then I thought six months and I'll be done.

And here I am, eight years, and I'm nearly kind of hitting the decade mark which for me is incredible I never imagined I'd do it never no well it's been enjoyable watching you get this far on you know we can only imagine what's coming what's yet to come and you mentioned there Muslim woman you didn't talk about that much at the beginning of your career but now you absolutely stand solid in your identity and you talk a lot about what your identity means when did that change and why do you talk about it now? I don't know where I got really comfortable something happened over the last sort of I think two or three years where I just thought I have to be able to express myself as who I am without worrying about what everybody else thinks and if through that I don't have a career that's's fine. If through that, I lose family,

then that's fine. What might you have said that might have lost you your career? Oh, I think just being a Muslim and being proud and being happy as a Muslim. When you're in the public eye, there are times when I feel like being really honest about just being a proud Muslim woman is something that I should hide and I should be kind of ashamed of just because of you what you see in the the second you see something happen in the in the media a terrorist attack I feel like I have to answer those questions I feel like I'm answerable for them for those questions so I think moments like that I think just hide it'll go away and then you can just be yourself again and it's mine and and I felt that. My family have felt that. And yet here you are, you know, at the pinnacle of the only Muslim woman,

the woman who looks like you in the heart of the establishment on national TV. Yeah. And yet you are having to think about those things as well. Yeah, I always kind of lay back at night in bed and think to myself, if I didn't have to worry about my faith or my culture, if I didn't have to worry about those things, I could just be even better at my craft. Because you have to think of everything. Yeah, because people like me, and I say people like me, there's no one like me. No one is in

this industry who looks like me. It's a very middle aged Caucasian male industry. And there are moments in my career where I have felt that I didn't belong. People have said I don't belong. People have said that this is not your space. So it's been really uncomfortable, like crying in the toilet type moments, but I've just smiled, got myself on camera. But here I am today celebrating a book about recipes from my mum, from my grandma. My mum will have never ever been celebrated my

grandma definitely wouldn't have been celebrated my mum my grandma says who am I I can't read or write and I'm like you are everything I often say one of the most overlooked demographics in this country are South Asian women of that generation yeah our mothers and our and our grandmothers I feel like you are doing something to empower them with this book. Yeah, I showed my mum the book. What did she say? She flicked through it. My grandma can't see anymore.

I was talking to her about it, so I was kind of explaining things. And she said, oh, that's good. And she said, I think it's colourful because she can see just a little bit. So she said it's colourful. And my mum looked at it. And then the first thing my mum looked, she kind of like swiped across the page. And so the first time my mum said to me you look really beautiful first time in your life in 38 years my mum said you look really beautiful I'll have that I don't even care if she doesn't like

the recipes I will have that that's Indian mums for you right what's mum's name asthma asthma you have brought into this world of beautiful woman um what she said about the recipes oh she loved them she said that's amazing and she kind of looked through the um what she said about the recipes oh she loved them she said that's amazing and she kind of looked through the ingredients and she said she was really impressed i showed my dad and my dad ran restaurants his whole life and he is amazing like honestly my dad is so charismatic and i remember years ago when i was about 15 i said to dad you need to make people eat the chicken korma that we eat at home not the one that you cook in the restaurant with cream and cashews. That's not right.

They've got to try our korma. And when I showed him the recipe in the book, he goes, you finally did it. Couldn't believe he remembered that. And I love the relationship between you and your dad. And yes, Mr Charisma, daughter, exactly the same. Why was it important to get validation from your mum though? Why was it important to celebrate the women?

Women like my mum are overlooked completely. My mum's the one who taught me how to cook like heading towards 40 and I kind of see that my mum is the reason why I am as strong as I am my nan's the reason why I'm as tough as I am and as resilient as I am because my mum has had to kind of take pushbacks and hear things really not very nice things. And she just sits quietly. You know, she sits at home. She works six days a week, comes home, cooks. You know, she doesn't need the celebration or the pomp. She doesn't need anything.

She just kind of happily lives her life. I've realised now that I'm not just flying my own flag here. You know, I get to kind of fly my mum's. I get to fly my grandma's who people who never who are completely unseen here's the thing about that generation of women they've given birth to women in a foreign country in another culture and then these women these their daughters then find their voices yeah and are out there doing things that they would never dream of doing no how did your mom sort of compute what was happening in your life I think it really scares her. Last time I saw her, she said, I said, Oh, I've just got back from LA because I'd gone for work. And she's like,

did anyone go with you? And she's like, she's really she worries that I'm on my own. And, and also she worries and for her, it's completely alien. The idea that I leave my children, I leave my husband, and I go off, and I have this career outside of them is still really alien to her. I mean, eight years later, she still says, when are you going home to the kids? I'm like, mom, I'm not. Mom, I'm not going home to the kids. I am at home with them, but I'm also doing a job that I love. And what about the extraordinary success that you've had and the independence that that brings and the voice that you found and the financial stability that you and like how has that kind of impacted on people

around you you know what it's interesting and I love talking to you because I think the honesty about things like financial stability and things like you know because I know that when I was a housewife I was provided for but I always was provided for, but I always longed for financial stability. I always longed for financial independence. And that is a word that is in my daughter's vocabulary now. Like she is 12 and she's like, I'm going to get financial independence. And when I get a flat in New York, it's going to have marble floors. She knows that already at 12.

It's something that my mom now is only understanding because she works. And so she always says that I got confidence from you so she says to me and my sisters she always says she never worked her whole life and she said I wasted my whole life not knowing what it feels like to be independent and then we all went off to work I got this career my mum's like you know what what am I sat at home for I'm gonna get a job like you guys and she always says you guys are the reason why I now have a job so your mum went to work after you and your sisters went out there yeah and worked that's incredible she saw us do it and how's it changed her oh my goodness my mum is like honestly

such a firecracker she's a firecracker anyway but having financial independence has given her so much confidence like she is but she still comes home and busts the gut and cooks every day and makes sure dad's fed and makes sure nan's fed but she just feels a little bit less burdened do you know what we've talked about so much stuff nothing about spices very quickly i mean people are terrified of spices if they don't never cook for them what's the basic thing that they should do what's the one spice that they should have in their cupboard or the couple that they should have well i think having the eight spices means that you should do? What's the one spice that they should have in their cupboard or the couple that they should have? Well, I think having the eight spices means that you can do any of the recipes,

which is amazing. But a couple of whole spices, things like cinnamon, which are so versatile because you can use them in savoury and sweet cooking. And then like for me, it's got to be turmeric.

Turmeric is like an all healer, right? It's amazing. It's great to cook with, amazing for your health. Nadia Hussain, and so many responses to that interview. Heidi says, so many of us can relate to living in the pull of either or loving this freedom of the colourful grey space

Becky writes such a fantastic role model for so many reasons I hope she continues to inspire us and finally Rachel says Nadia is a national treasure and we are lucky to have her and if you'd like to comment on anything you hear in the program or if there's anything you think you'd like us to cover, then why don't you get in touch with us, email us via our website or contact us on social media. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, just subscribe to the daily podcast for free via the website. Now this week, we heard from two women who experienced the knock. That's what they call it when they're told out of the blue that a loved one is being arrested for sexual offences against

children. A woman we're calling Anne told our reporter Jo Morris about how her life fell apart because of her husband's crime. After many years of a happy marriage she had to reassess everything. On all that while feeling afraid of the judgement of others online and in real life. The whole world was getting to know about this before I'd even had a chance to even understand it myself. And they'd all decided that he was guilty. It's something I don't think anybody should have to go through. And then they all seemed to work together to make sure it spreads far and wide. What sort of things were they saying about you? To be honest a lot of it I've just like

numbed out people saying I must have known that was the one that hurt me the most that people thought I knew that and I was going along with it and I didn't know because I love children and actually I would say that's one of the things that really impacted me very hard was I felt guilty even looking at children after that it was a really weird thing I've got God children with their own children and I felt I didn't want to be around them I didn't feel I could touch them because I felt like I was as guilty as he was, even though I had nothing to do with any of it. It's a horrible thing that you're left with, that scar, and you think everybody's looking at you and judging.

And, yeah, it took me a long time to get over that, to be honest, to actually hold another child and have them on my knee. We heard from another woman we're calling Evie. She had to come to terms with the fact that her brother is a sex offender. She too is worried about the judgment of others, especially because she decided to continue to support her brother. That decision cost her dearly, as you'll hear in this clip, which has been voiced by an actor. I think that for him, one of the triggers was intense loneliness and depression. So if I'm supporting him to be less lonely and less depressed, then I'm reducing the risk of him re-offending.

It's just so taboo to say I still love him. For some people, it's easier to just cut off all connections, and I totally get that. I feel like whatever decision somebody makes, it's really important to respect that and to appreciate that there's no easy decision. You can't say to anybody I'm really upset because my brother's a sex offender but I still love him yeah I remember once I felt really upset and I felt like I wanted to speak to somebody and I was tempted to phone the Samaritans,

but I didn't phone them because I felt like it would take away from the real victims. Like that was a support service for real victims, not me. So I felt like I didn't deserve it. Evie there, not her real name, and you can hear both of those interviews in full on BBC Sounds. I spoke to Deborah Dennis, CEO of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, a child sexual abuse prevention helpline and campaign, but first Rachel Armitage,

Professor of Criminology at the University of Huddersfield. I wanted to say thanks to Anne and Evie for sharing those stories which are absolutely heartbreaking and reflect the hundreds and hundreds of stories that I hear every week. And Deborah hears as well. But a couple of things from those clips that really struck me, both Anne and Evie sort of having an apprehension or apologising for bringing their own situation to the attention of yourself and and society really and um just constantly saying that they're not the real victim um you know i didn't call samaritans because i i don't want to take away from the real victim the children in the images are the real victims so so both uh you know gave this message right through um and i think another one that's really important

that i would really like people to realise is that these two people reflect a lot of other people in this situation in saying and constantly reiterating that they didn't know. I'm feeling the need to say that and to clarify that. I think you've heard both saying, I racked my brains to think if I'd missed something, I'm not a stupid woman. People saying I must have known and I think Anne said I must have, I didn't know, I love children and that she felt the need to say that

over again is just, it's really, really sad and it's a constant message that we hear. Deborah, I'll tell you what stood out for me, Deborah, was when we heard her say she felt as guilty as he was. Yeah, that's certainly something that we hear quite frequently from women, actually. Part of this is around the perceptions, actually, of non-offending family members. When something like this happens, the society view and the shame and the stigma is so powerfully felt by these women that they look back thinking they must have done something wrong,

or they look back thinking, where could I have seen this behavior? How could I have intervened? And the reality is that they weren't complicit, yet they feel like they were. They feel like society puts on them that they have been complicit. So we need to move from an environment in a society where that complicity is shifted into actually these are secondary victims themselves. The trauma that they're going through is very, very real. What happens at the first stage of the knock doesn't go away. The impact continues months, years. We hear these stories from hundreds of women, thousands, a thousand women call our helpline every year talking about the

impact that they've had. And some of that is, what could I have done? And the answer is, it's not a woman's job to police their husband or their brother or their father or whoever it is that has committed the offences. And they shouldn't feel that way. But society almost perpetuates it for them, sadly. Do they feel guilty for not knowing, Rachel? Yeah, I'd say absolutely they do. And I think that's something that people are made to feel as well. Sometimes by agencies, by family, by friends. You know, you should have spotted the signs.

Yeah, well, I'd agree. We see, so we have a family and friends forum. 40,000 people visit that every year 2000 are posting supporting each other and that is one of the key themes that we see them talking about actually is should i have known what could i have done and what's great about the forum is people can jump in and say well actually i've been through this and i've looked back and i can't identify a point anywhere where i could have known or intervened and And actually, it's not your job to. So there's sort of peer support going on to help people think that through.

So is that why you are saying they should be recognised as secondary victims because of the huge stigma that they're having to deal with and the societal judgment? Absolutely. We need to shift that approach from this idea that in some way family members have been complicit into a place of actually these are secondary victims also. And the tragic fact is that given the scale of online offending, given the scale that police are arresting 900 people a month, it's almost inevitable that at some point soon, all of us will know somebody who has been affected in this way. We need society to catch up and make it okay to talk about, make it okay for women to get help. Child sexual abuse is abhorrent. And we would love to believe that it happens to somebody else, and it's not going to be involved in our circle or our family or our friends network.

But the reality is there are 900 people being arrested a month and that is the tip of the iceberg so inevitably at some point we will become touched by this issue. Yes Rachel please do. Yes so in terms of that number it's quite difficult to get the statistics but we've done some work on this and of that 900 you know to a thousand month, we've estimated that about 35 to 40% of those will have children living at the home at the time of the knock or the warrant. So basically, that's 10 families with children a day going through this. The repercussions are unbelievable in that situation. And we've talked a lot about men and you mentioned young men being arrested as well, Deborah. But are women ever arrested for these crimes? It's not unheard of, but it is absolutely the minority.

And Rachel, you're talking about the research that you've done there for the Lucy Faithfull Foundation. Tell us a bit more about that. What did you find? Were there high levels of post-traumatic stress? Yeah, yeah. So basically, one of the key findings, as you've alluded to there, was of our survey of 126 family members, we found that 70% of those had symptoms that would be indicative of post-traumatic stress. And 65% so severe, that PTSD, that it would be impacting their immune system functioning. So hair loss, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome um and that was just just one of the findings from it um and just to say that that really relates to the knock itself the actual knock on the door yeah yeah and the hyper vigilance and the humiliation and the how that impacts people going forward of remembering and flashing back to that moment.

And what happens at that point to, you know, get the knock at the door? The children might be in. They will be in. They will be in, yeah. What support is in place? What happens next? One of the policies is that if children live at the address, the knock will happen between 6 and 8 a.m. when the children are in as a safeguarding measure.

And in terms of, I mean, the two ladies who gave, you know, wonderful interviews hadn't been signposted to any charity and they're left in isolation and this is traditionally how it has been. But I would like to say that, you know know we are getting better now and police forces we've been doing training to encourage them to do the not more sympathetically and to make sure that they auto automatically refer families to support agencies of which there are now uh and obviously weren't when anna nevy um went through what they went through but there's a we set up a charity called Talking Forward and and there are police forces now that will take the name of the family and give that to Talking Forward who will ring within 48 hours and ensure that that family

feels supported and invite them to to peer support there's some wonderful work going on in Thames Valley with a charity called Family Matters that act as an advocacy for families right from the knock through the criminal justice system. Another police force, Lincolnshire Police Force, have employed the equivalent of a family liaison officer. So an indirect victim support officer who holds the hand of the family right through. So things are changing. Things are changing and so there are different things in place. You know, Deborah, actually, we heard from Evie, the second interview, where she talks about supporting her brother.

And somebody's messaging to say, thank you, Evie, for being so brave and honest. This is still a taboo subject which tears so many families apart. Social services need to help these families too. I worked as a social worker for many years. The offences do not always completely define the offender. What do you think about that? Do you find that people do support their families?

Is there a right way, a wrong way? What should people do? Well, first off, there absolutely isn't ever any right way or wrong way. And everyone's situation is different and everyone's relationship with the person who's committed the harm will be different. What we hear from families, wives, partners, parents, brothers, sisters,

all the people around is that any direction they look and any decision they have to make, there is not a good outcome. If you leave, there are bad outcomes. If you stay, there are bad outcomes. There is no good decision making to be done. So what we try to do as an organisation is help people think that through. And we don't make judgments. And I would urge everybody not to judge somebody for their actions. Evie was very clear she had her own reasons for wanting to support her brother. Everyone will have their own reasons for the decision they make. And no decision would be a bad decision if it's right for them. What we do see, particularly with our wives, is about a 50-50 split. So half will stay and half will leave. What I want to make clear really though is once that decision has been made, it's not a final decision, things

change as well and situations move on and trauma is not static. So that will evolve over time. What we will stress though is that no family member or wife should feel responsible for policing the behaviour of their loved one. If they choose to support them, as Evie described, to reduce loneliness, to help with depression, to try and keep him safe, that's admirable, but it's not the relative's job to do that. So they shouldn't feel responsible for their loved one's behaviour. Giving support is one thing, but feeling responsible would be a different thing. We did actually get another reaction to evie's email um interview that says the woman talking about her brother who was convicted of sexual offenses she should be congratulated on such a

mature empathetic wise and compassionate response to her current situation to think of the potential future victims of sexual abuse by supporting her brother is to be hugely congratulated i can't imagine how hard her situation is all love and power to her sending a massive hug her children are so lucky to have such a wonderful mother um i really hope she heard that i i hope so too to both of you if there is someone listening who is struggling to deal with a family member who has been accused or found guilty of a sexual against against the child and the chances are there will be what advice would you give them, Rachel?

So I'd say you don't need to be going through it alone. And Deborah, from you, what do you want to see change? What needs to be in place? Goodness, so much, actually. But if I could change one thing, it would be the potential perceptions of non-offending family members and making it OK to talk about these issues. Deborah Dennis and Rachel Armitage. And if you've been affected by anything

you've heard during this interview a list of information and support resources can be found on the Women's Hour website. Now some British women are now being offered IVF treatment using artificial intelligence. The software is used to help select the best embryo for implantation and is said to be able to pick up on things that the human eye can't detect. So how might AI improve the chances of a successful pregnancy? Suzanne Kaywood, Director of Embryology at the Centre for Reproductive and Genetic Health in London, has been researching and using AI technology in her practice. Why did she want to use artificial intelligence? We're always striving to improve patient pregnancy rates wherever we can. So we're always looking for the latest, most innovative research. So essentially,

we want to try everything that looks promising to help women get pregnant. And this is a private IVF clinic that you work at? I work at a private IVF clinic. We also do perform some NHS cycles, but we are primarily private, yes. IVF clinic. We also do perform some NHS cycles, but we are primarily private. Yes. So with AI, you know, if you look at some of the headlines, it might in some way give inflated hope, perhaps. How does it really work in IVF treatment? The way it works is you put the embryos into an incubator. And this incubator takes photographs of the embryos every 15 minutes. So by the time you come to select an embryo to transfer back into the uterus, then the AI, the computer essentially has thousands of images of these embryos and

millions of data points. It can see when the embryo reached a certain time period, it gets to two cells, three cell, four cells at specific time periods. It also notes the levels of fragmentation. It basically fragmentation being what might be an issue. Yes, exactly. So as an embryo divides, it can spew out parts that it doesn't want, basically. So the more fragmentation in general, the poorer quality, but it can just detect everything, all the morphokinetics within an embryo. So and then obviously, because there are millions of data points, just an embryologist, a human being, whilst we can pick up on lots and see the main issues that we're looking for, which promote implantation, we can't possibly analyse

every bit of data from every embryo. So what the computer does, what artificial intelligence does, is look at all of that data in seconds, and simply give the embryo a score, which it believes gives it an implantation, a pregnancy indicator. So it would be a potentially more successful embryo to implant that might result in a successful pregnancy? Yeah, so AI itself, of course, doesn't change the chance of an embryo becoming a baby. Of course, it can't do anything to do that. But what it can do is make the embryologist choose the embryo, which is going to become a baby. So if you had four embryos to choose from, an embryologist might think, actually, this one looks nicer. But AI will say, actually, you've missed something. This one we think is more likely to become a baby.

But we have heard with AI that it's only as good as the information that's been put into it to begin with. Absolutely. And wherever it's getting that data from. And also that there can be a margin of error because we're in somewhat early stages in certain industries, perhaps also with IVF. Of course. I mean, the data that's put in, it detects the movement of the embryo. You know, the data that's put in is coming from the embryo itself. Okay, yeah.

However, the margin of error is a very good point. And certainly when we use AI, we don't rely on it. We double check everything the computer says. And we do notice that, you know, within five to 10% of the time, it misses something or we disagree with something because it's just, you know, it's just the computer saying, oh, we think it's gone to a three cell here. But actually, we don't think that was a cell. We think it was just a large fragment. So I would certainly never want anyone to rely on AI on its own. It has to be a hybrid model with the scientists. So it's a sort of combined effort. It's almost like having a second opinion. Okay, interesting. And so that's

at this point. But do you see AI taking over in the future? I really don't. Because of the reasons you just said, I think the more it's used, the more reliable it will become, the more accurate it will come. Because so at CRGH, we've been using it for two and a half years. We didn't offer it to patients until January. It's just a few months, really. Yes, it really is. We had 18 months worth of research and seeing how it worked. Because the other thing is, is it's different in every laboratory because embryos act differently in different laboratories.

Why? I know that sounds crazy because we create a womb-like environment, but every lab uses a different incubator, different culture media. We have different temperatures, pH, osmolality. There are so many factors that we create. And yes, whilst an embryo will always should develop at a certain time, it might be slightly, and we're talking tiny fractions, you know, a minute or two minutes difference between labs, and that will impact the algorithm. So each lab will have to use, will have to have AI in its lab, I believe, well, it depends how big the lab is. But I mean, we process 10s of 1000s of embryos before that we felt comfortable

using it. And that's to form our algorithms in our centre. And that's what I'm interested. That's your team, the people you're working with, that are making those decisions. But are there any peer-reviewed evidence yet that AI increases the chance of the embryos that are controlled by AI, for want of a better term, or observed by AI? No, I don't think there is by AI, for want of a better term, or observed by AI?

No, I don't think there is any good, solid kind of prospective evidence to say that it improves success rates. Yes, there are lots of preliminary studies which are showing really promising data. And there have been some claims that it's improving success rates by X amount, for example. At CRGH, we are not using the technology saying it improves rates because we haven't seen that yet. Because the other thing I'm thinking of for a person going through this, you have to have the embryos to begin with. Exactly. Right. OK, you have to have eggs, they have to fertilise, they have to grow to a certain rate. And this is almost like that that final step there's an awful lot that's outside in the whole process that's away from actually AI or away from this particular process you know you have to have

come a long way before you get to that point I suppose the other question is does it make a huge difference whether it's embryo number one or embryo number two that's implanted if they look pretty similar to the embryologist's eye? Yeah, I mean, that's an incredibly good point. It's not going to help people because as I said, the embryo will become a baby or it won't. So AI isn't going to change that. It's not AI isn't going to help people who have had, you know, decades of failed IVF, because it really is helping those fortuitous patients who end up with a good number of embryos to choose from. So say you, you know, a patient had four embryos, one of those embryos was destined to become a baby, the other three, you know,

for whatever reason, miscarriage, failure, what it means is maybe the embryologist wouldn't pick the baby until number three. And your point is, well, does it matter? Because they'll get the baby eventually. It does matter. Well, it's not just money. I mean, yes, IVF costs a lot of money. There is a financial burden. There's a huge physical burden going through IVF. There's a huge psychological burden. And it impacts every negative you have, every miscarriage. It can really affect women. People might not come back for that third transfer because it's been so traumatic. They might not be able to afford to. So it's absolutely important. It's so important to get that pregnancy as soon as you can.

Let me turn to the HFEA, which are the regulating body. They gave us a statement on the use of AI in IVF treatment. They say that they have concerns about, and I quote, the inappropriate use of some treatment add-ons when patients are paying for extras to their routing treatment with claims, it will increase the chance of success? Of course. The HFEA are a really important part of IBF in the UK. They're a fantastic body and they are there for the patients to make sure that clinics don't take advantage of them in a very vulnerable position that they are in.

And as I said to you, there isn't the evidence yet. So the HFEA are of course going to come, and as I said to you, there isn't the evidence yet. So the HFA are of course going to come out and say, until there is that evidence, we are not going to promote its use. We are not claiming that AI increases success rates at the moment. We're hoping that it will certainly. What we're using it for is just yet another tool to help us select embryos, but also, and as an additional feature, it actually just gives the patient a fantastic experience when they come through for IVF because it's, as I was saying, it is so traumatic.

It really can be. And also there's such a loss of control when your embryos, your egg sperm and then subsequent embryos are in the lab. You don't know what's going on. And actually what we do is we give the patients a live feed to their phone or their computer or their... Really?

Yeah, and so they can, at any point in the day, they can just go on and look at their embryos, all their embryos. They can see how they're developing. They can see what they're doing. And they give these really quite fancy-looking reports. So for us, we're using it just as a way to be completely transparent with our patients. And when we discuss with them every day, we talk to the patients every day and say,

this is what your embryo is doing, they can actually see their embryo when we're talking to them. So they can say, oh, yes, I can see that one's doing well. It looks really lovely. You know, they are their little babies and they can talk about them as such. I mean, I'm astonished by that in many ways. Some might be concerned that you're getting to a level of granular detail that maybe will make you invest more hope. I mean, the figures, you can spell them out for me. But for IVF, they're incredibly low for somebody to have

a successful pregnancy. They are. I mean, the national average is only around 30%. Right. So we're talking about 70% that won't work. Yeah, I see. It doesn't work for everybody. So is it going to be getting their hopes up are they going to get more attached yeah i mean i would argue that they do get really attached their hopes of course their hopes are already up and it's it's a choice a patient doesn't have to log in they don't have to choose this service of having the embryos and if you know the other thing is is they don't look at the live footage and they don't have that but then if they fall pregnant they can go back and have that video. Now let me turn to

the full statement from the HFEA this is Claire Ettenhausen Director of Strategy and Corporate Affairs for HFEA. They say the HFEA has raised concerns for many years about the inappropriate use of some treatment add-ons when patients are paying for extras to their routing treatment which I mentioned with claims they will increase their chances of success. We would advise patients to be extremely cautious about paying extra for tools such as this, where there have been

some good studies, but no evidence to show that it has an effect on outcomes. We know that for the vast majority of patients, more rounds of proven treatment could be more effective than paying for unproven add-ons.

The HFEA will be launching a new and more informative treatment add-on rating system for patients next month, which will include AI techniques, such as time-lapse imaging using AI. The rating system will offer information for defined patient groups and outcomes other than just live birth. For example, whether an add-on reduces the miscarriage rate in older women. In the meantime, clear and unbiased information is available at www.hfea.gov.uk.

And we strongly encourage patients to use this information when talking to their clinics. At your clinic, is AI considered an add-on that would be charged for? It is an add-on which is charged for, but we do not claim that it's increasing your pregnancy rate. Suzanne Kaywood talking to Nuala. And finally, Mercury Prize winning musician Arlo Parks, who's just turned her hand to poetry with her debut book, The Magic Border, combining original poetry, song lyrics and photography. Why did she decide to share her poetry now? For me, it was always this very kind of private, personal practice that I had and have had since I was a teenager. And I think honestly, it came from witnessing how my music was kind of stretching beyond me and the fact that at some

point I was terrified of even claiming myself to be a musician. But seeing how the music was stretching and helping people and I just had that urge to do the same with my poems. You mentioned you were introduced to it as a teenager. Do you remember that introduction? Yeah, I do remember. I remember writing a lot of short stories as a kid. And my teacher pointed out the fact that I was always very drawn to imagery. And I didn't really have that much interest in plot.

I just wanted to kind of create these beautiful images. And she said, actually, you might like poetry. And so I started delving into like the beat poets and Sylvia Plath and just became so enamored with it as a form. And I felt as well when I wrote poetry that it really helped me to kind of unknot a lot of things that were complicated. And I was a very emotional child. So it became this place where I could be completely myself and kind of work through things that were difficult. Why is it called The Magic Border?

So there's this book called Exteriors by Annie Arnaud, who's a French writer that I love. And she essentially talks about how the outside world, so things that she sees on the street that move her or that make her feel angry or that bring up memories really inform her understanding of her internal world. And I liked the idea of having this imaginary border between the outside world and the inside world and how things kind of filter in and out. And that really kind of encapsulated the ethos of the book. With creating the book, is it different to performing live, for example? Is the mental load different? Yeah, it is very different. I think even just, you know,

the way that one reads a book is very much kind of personal and private and quiet versus, you know, music has this culture of concerts and festivals and gigs and is very much this exchange. It definitely like flexes a different muscle,

but it definitely feels connected. I saw you, you didn't see me, but I saw you in Somerset House last year and you were performing and it was so beautiful. There was all these young women that were there that were waving sunflowers, you know, which is, I suppose, signifies resilience and endurance and hope and I don't know, I really took that away when I left just such a role model that you are for those young women. Well thank you yeah I think that it's interesting to create art and maybe also you know from a place of me being black and being queer and being young and creating music that is you know in the indie alternative space and having women reaching out to me and saying actually

you inspired me to be completely myself and what you're creating you know they can tell that it comes from a place of heart and you know people showing me their poetry when I meet them and saying oh actually you inspired me to put my thoughts down or start writing songs or making clothes or whatever it might be and kind of empowering women in this way that, you know, I never really set out to be a role model. The book also, to describe to people, it has poetry. It also has some of your songs from My Soft Machine, your sophomore album, as we're calling it.

It also has photography. It's kind of like a snapshot, I feel, into your life. life yeah it is very much a time capsule i think of all the things that were moving me during those 18 months actually why don't we get you to read yeah a little yeah so this is a poem called happy queer film it has been 24 years and we have finally found heaven magnesium powder for the golden rods, foraged blackberries and pine marmalade, your eyes splintering against moss. We make out like teenagers in the rainstorm, come in wet, dark and glowing. I pull my sweater over my head, get my records out. You are designing wings, it's your fourth set of sketches we do not speak to your grandmother

anymore but she has been forgiven we have many friends we pickle vegetables for each other show love with a simple consistency the films we watched always made us feel like we couldn't have this a joyful ending an ending where nobody's dead. And despite everything, here we are, pressing Astor's into a book for our kid. For our kid. How important is friendship when it comes to this book? I mean, it's everything. You know, so many of these poems are letters to people that I love in my life. And I think that I was asked about this yesterday, actually.

And no poem of mine is just about me as an individual. It's always about how the people around me have moved me, paying homage to friendship, paying homage to love, it being made with a friend as well. It just feels like it's about community at school, really. Yeah, yeah, that very much comes across. How different is it writing poetry to writing lyrics for your music? It does feel very different. I think that with a song, you really have to distill a feeling to its essence because you have that structure of verse, a pre-chorus and a chorus.

You have to be very economical with your language and kind of try and put across a feeling that might be very vast and complicated into, you know, three minutes worth of music. But I think with poetry, especially because I've never really been interested in traditional form, I feel like I have more space to be more fluid and kind of explore different facets of the whole. So it feels a little bit more free to me. And with the poem you've just read, who is that to? I honestly think that that poem was just to queer people in the world and wanting to create a piece of art that was kind of celebrating joy and celebrating domesticity and companionship and kind of providing the hope

for like a happy ending. It is a lot of beauty and domesticity, I think, throughout your book. Yeah, and it's something that I crave. Are you a homebird? Yes. Doesn't it? Can't you tell? Well, I don't know. Last time I was watching you,

you know, mesmerizing hundreds of people on stage or thousands probably. Yeah, I'm very much a homebody. Yeah, I think especially, you know, me traveling so much and constantly moving and uprooted, I definitely get so much joy out of just like simply being at home and like cooking a meal, you know. You so much and constantly moving and uprooted I definitely get so much

joy out of just like simply being at home and like cooking a meal you know you are on tour with your second album my soft machine what about the word and I thought this reading your poetry last night listening to your music soft it's like it's not just. It's also soft could be tender, right? Exactly. And I feel that. And even you talk about bruises and bruisless. And I just felt that real sensation of the skin. Talk to me why you say soft. Yeah, I think it's exactly that.

I think it's treading through the world softly and being a person who allows themselves to be moved by things in the world and who moves through it with a sense of wonder and being in touch with the inner child and the fact that there is this softness and this sense of awe and tenderness as well. But it can be hard to remain soft. It can be and I think that especially the world can be quite a hard place but I do think that real deep connections with other human beings comes from being soft and allowing yourself to be affected by others and their love. What a talent Arlo Parks is. And thank you to Nuala for presenting Woman's Hour over the last nine months. We're going to miss you. On Monday, Emma Barnett is back and she'll be speaking to the writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, among others. Who's in the news for all the wrong reasons? Step inside the world of crisis management and so-called spin doctors with me, David Yelland. And me, Simon Lewis. In our new podcast from BBC Radio 4, we tell you what's really going on

behind the scenes as the week's biggest PR disasters unfold. Simon and I used to be on opposite sides of a story in the media when I was editor of The Sun and Simon was communications secretary to the late Queen. Now we've teamed up to share everything we know about what's keeping those big stories in and out of the press. As the great philosopher King Mike Tyson himself once said, everyone has a plan until they're punched in the mouth. And there's a lot of people punching people in the mouth in this town.

Listen and subscribe to When It Hits The Fan on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy.

And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.