Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour - Vicky Knight, teen mental health, lip fillers

Episode Date: June 29, 2019

We hear from Vicky Knight, the star of a new film ‘Dirty God’ about a young mother who is the victim of an acid attack.As we conclude our series on teenage mental health we hear from three parents about how they have helped their child deal with mental health issues and the impact of these problems on the whole family.With one in eight children being diagnosed with a mental health condition in England today, we look at support for parents while they are waiting for help for their child. We hear from Claire Murdoch the National Director of Mental Health at NHS England, Lisa McNally a director of public health Sandwell, and EmmaThomas the CEO of the charity Young Minds UK. We discuss the popularity of lip fillers with the journalist Claire Coleman, Megan Orr who has lip fillers and to Nici Cunningham whose daughter recently had her lips enhanced.Meaghan Beatley on the Spanish Wolfpack trial and the impact of Spain’s feminists on changing the original Supreme Court ruling from sexual abuse to gang rape.We discuss miscarriage and the convention of the 12 week wait before announcing a pregnancy. Journalist Rebecca Reid told family and friends of her pregnancy before 12 weeks, and then miscarried. Midwife Leah Hazard is the author of Hard Pushed: A Midwife’s Story.And the netballer Geva Mentor tells us about being part of the England squad.Presented by Jane Garvey Produced by Rabeka Nurmahomed Edited by Jane ThurlowInterviewed guest: Vicky Knight Interviewed guest: Claire Murdoch Interviewed guest: Lisa McNally Interviewed guest: Emma Thomas Interviewed guest: Claire Coleman Interviewed guest: Megan Orr Interviewed guest: Nici Cunningham Interviewed guest: Meaghan Beatley Interviewed guest: Rebecca Reid Interviewed guest: Leah Hazard Interviewed guest: Geva Mentor

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. Hi, good afternoon. Welcome to the weekend edition of Woman's Hour. This week in our teenage mental health series, we'll hear from parents and discuss solutions to the growing problem. And lip fillers. Here's one mother's opinion of how her daughter looks now. I think it's quite a plastic look. It looks false. They have this very closed vision of how they want to look. There's the long curl hair, the big eyebrows and the big pronounced lips.

More about that issue a little later in the programme. Also this week, how the so-called Spanish Wolfpack trial has galvanised the country's feminists. You can hear from the netballer, Jiva Menter, and miscarriage and the convention of waiting for the 12-week scan to make the announcement that you're pregnant. It's interesting to hear things like the rule or the secrecy gene because this is really antiquated. I mean, it's unfortunate that we're even speaking about this today because whether or not you tell people or buy anything for the baby

or anything like that has absolutely no bearing on whether your pregnancy will continue. That was the voice of the midwife, Leah Hazard, and also involved in that discussion, the journalist Rebecca Reid. That was interesting. You can hear that a little later in this edition of Weekend Woman's Hour. Now, yesterday we devoted the programme to a discussion with an expert panel about teenage mental health and some of the possible solutions and you can hear an extract from that conversation after you've heard this.

We have been looking at teenage mental health on Women's Hour over the last couple of weeks and we've been listening to doctors and to teachers and to parents. 75% of mental health problems do start before a child gets to their 18th birthday. So we talked to two mothers and a father. They were actually in conversation with our reporter Catherine Carr. Now to protect the identities of their children, no real names or places have been used. And their children have a variety of mental health issues, including anxiety, eating disorders and self-harm. You'll hear them making reference to CAMHS, which stands for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. My daughter started off when I would say she was about six with anxiety, mainly surrounding being sick. She would be washing her hands and she would make her hands red raw doing

that she'd stop eating she wouldn't eat at school if she saw someone that's sick actually in the lunch hall at school then she wouldn't eat for the next couple of days because she thought it was going to happen to her as well and I thought she'd grow out of it you know but I think when it started to affect her day to day when she wasn't eating properly I just got to the point where I thought, well, nothing I'm saying is working here. Nothing. We need to go and chat to the doctor about it. And they referred us to CAMHS and we were put on a waiting list, which we were told at that point was 18 months. How did that bit of news feel?

I just felt really shocked that it was that long. With most things with children, if a child's ill if you're going to A&E they sort of fast track you through you know they get an appointment for you there and then they're fantastic but with this it was I was just amazed absolutely amazed and also just scared again because I thought how on earth are we going to get you know if she doesn't get better what's she going to be like by the time we get some therapy or some real help with this she was um yeah very outgoing very friendly with people she was overweight so then she's convinced herself she's fat she's stupid she's ugly and it went downhill from there what's it like when a child gets that narrative in their head

and they're telling you, they're telling themselves, they're behaving like they're fat, stupid and ugly, and you're their dad? How does that feel? It's just a horrible, horrible situation you're in. There's nothing you can say or do. She actually told me that a million people could tell her she's gorgeous and good-looking and brilliant and bright and intelligent.

One says one thing wrong, she'll listen to the one, not the million. And the other thing that doesn't help, of course, is social media. You can't switch it off. You can't get away from it. I have two children. Finn is 20 and Connie is 17. Finn was adopted at six months and Connie at nine months. Finn had a very fabulous foster family and they totally adored him. And when he came home, the transition was painless. Connie, on the other hand, was physically well cared for, but had no eye contact when she came home.

And we have kind of pieced it together that she was physically well cared for, but not emotionally stimulated. Looking back, we were very naive and we should have immediately sought some help. Both of them, Mike and I and my husband, had not realised the absolutely catastrophic effect of post-adoption trauma. And so one's mental health is compromised immediately once one is moved from the familial home, no matter how inappropriate it is. We, in our hippie-type way, believe that love conquers all. Finally, our time came up to get some treatment, so she had some CBT for about, I think it was about five months in total,

and that really worked. She clicked with the counsellor, with the therapist. The other thing is that I was able to go in on the sessions, every session, so I was able to help her at home as well. So that really worked. She clicked with the counsellor, with the therapist. The other thing is that I was able to go in on the sessions, every session, so I was able to help her at home as well. So that was great. So that helped. About a year later, she started to dip again. So I went back to the GP with her, and we had to go back to CAMHS again, back on the waiting list. This time it was two years.

And as she went from primary to senior school what happened with that transition for her? It was awful I absolutely hated it I used to almost every morning walk along the road with her to the bus with her probably crying or extremely nervous and then I'd cry all the way I'll say all the way home it's not far but you know back to the house and had the other children in the house as well that I couldn't leave. So I just felt pulled in all directions. And it was really, really stressful. A lot of what you've described, it all sounds quite solitary for you. Oh, it's completely. And you are, you're put on a waiting list and left to get on with the rest of your life you know it's

it really is like that it's very very lonely and I know that there are lots of other people out there going through it but that doesn't help me you know it doesn't help me today it doesn't help me deal with my daughter when she's telling me she wants to end her life and also this part of you doesn't want to tell anybody because you don't you know family friends you don't want to upset them you don't want them to have you don't put your worry onto them but you need support and you need help and it's it's just not there she was a bit overweight but we never really got too concerned about that thinking it was just puppy fat and it would burn off but then as she got progressively older she was 13 stone at 13 14 stone at 14 so at the age of

15 she'd been on a diet for a few months and she'd gone down from about 14 and a half stone down to nine and a half stone and I took her out her and her boyfriend we went out to the hard rock cafe up in London and I've got a photograph of her looking at me as a clam with this enormous bucket of ice cream that she was chowing into and unfortunately I didn't keep an eye on things and the next time I looked at her carefully she was down to something like five and a quarter stone took it to the doctors and the doctor took one look at her and said immediately hospital now she was in such a state that she was getting bed sores from laying in the bed she could only sit on a rubber ring because the bones were sticking through her behind so I

was in a situation where I was working up until probably half past six getting home half past seven quarter eight spending the next three hours preparing a meal and trying to get her to eat it and then just going to bed and getting more and more tired. I trained to be a counsellor and when Finn had his first breakdown, I stopped doing that because I couldn't take on lots of young people's stress and anxiety when both of mine were running on empty. So I got a job in a supermarket for eight hours a week just so I could get out of the house and stop thinking about it for eight hours. Well, it was 12 hours at first, but I cut down as I realized Connie needed me around more so I've been like a psychiatric nurse a psychologist a rehabilitation youth worker a friend a mom a sister you know everything that she's needed and likewise for Finn but there

comes a point I'm 58 I feel like I'm 108 when you run out of steam and it's all just been too much and I feel diminished and broken by the system and as a parent you've just got to find it in you somewhere to get back up again and keep fighting how much of your headspace has taken up with this normally most of it I would say and I think I think at the moment we're in a good place at the moment had you spoke to me a year ago I couldn't hand on my heart say she wasn't going to carry out the the suicidal thoughts that she was having and threats I you know genuinely before I would have said no that's that's she doesn't mean that but I'm always walking that cliff edge and I'm never sure if or when we're going to drop off again it's intense it's never

ending it's like having a small vole at the base of your stomach turning around in a wheel taking nips out of you every five seconds I do believe in the ability of humanity to help pain dissipate and then perhaps you get to that age of 23, 24, 25, take a big deep breath and realise, do you know what? Everybody's struggling. It's not just me. And I think that's for both of them something they don't realise at all. They feel very alone. And our thanks to everybody who agreed to talk to us. And the reporter was Catherine Carr. And all those interviews, you can still hear them,

they're all still available via the BBC Sounds app. This is an email from a listener who says, All too often we parents are blamed when all we want in the world is for our children to be happy. For years my daughter has suffered with anxiety and depression as does her father and his mother before him. There was no help available to my daughter or to me before crisis point. I tried every avenue and at crisis point it changed. We are grateful to the NHS. The help then was abundant and really very good. But it didn't come until my daughter was actually 33 with children of her own. She's all right now and long may it last.

Well, yes, I have to say that email, not untypical. It's really important to emphasise that it would seem to be the case that brilliant help does come, but only when somebody reaches a real crisis point. So what do parents do? Where can they go while they're waiting for help for their child? Claire Murdoch is the National Director for Mental Health at NHS England. Lisa McNally is the Director of Public Health in Sandwell in the West Midlands. And Emma Thomas is the Chief Executive of the charity Young Minds. Here's Emma. There's a range of different services that might be out there. So if you're concerned about the eating patterns of your child, there's a great charity called Beat.

If you are worried about them having maybe suicidal thoughts, then an organisation like Papyrus is very good to help. Young Minds, we have content for parents on our website and we also have a parents' helpline. We would say that for parents they also just are often when they come to us very much at their wits end and so being able to talk to someone who understands, who can empathise and say you are doing the right thing actually is a really important part for them to be able to offer the support for their child and

to enable them to cope. So I think it is being able to support themselves as well as their child that they're particularly concerned about. While you wait or a child waits for a CAMHS appointment, will they see the GP every week? Should they see the GP every week? What treatments, if any, can a GP offer somebody waiting for a CAMHS referral? Well, I think we heard from one of your GPs earlier who talked about almost seeing parents coming back on a weekly basis. But should they? I think when someone has no one else to talk to, then unfortunately their GP is probably the only person placed to do that.

Even though that GP may not have had any training in mental health? I think if the parent has identified that as an individual that they want to continue to talk to or continue to put pressure on and say please refer my child then that is giving that parent a means of feeling they are doing the best for their child but clearly you would want them to be speaking to someone who really understands what they're going through which is why certainly from our helpline point of view we have volunteers who've been there who's been through the experience we also put

people through to professional counsellors so that they probably get access to a therapist a counsellor which they may never get the opportunity to do within the current system this must be a truly terrible time for any parent claire to that as that dad so brilliantly expressed he was as i would be utterly out of his depth what the hell do you do as a parent while you wait for some expert to give you proper help well i mean firstly i just want to say to the dad that i recognize that men especially can he said see it as a sign of weakness to ask for help so in particular i do want to say to men and the partners of men listening it's it's actually a sign of strength to ask for help, so I want to commend him. Obviously, we've got this huge push on to double care and treatment, to increase who's being seen. I appreciate there's an initiative underway.

Of course, no, and for individuals and families in the meantime, that doesn't help them. I do want to commend people to a lot of the work that the charities do. I've got charitable colleagues here now because the quality of support that's available, the quality of advice that's available, also on the NHS Ingram website, actually, is extremely good. The work we're rolling out through schools isn't just for teachers and the pupils, really.

It needs to be family-centred. It needs to operate around primary care as well, so that if you're a child in areas that have schools-based counselling, and not everywhere does at the minute, but that's part of what we're trying to get in place everywhere, people working as teams in an integrated way make all the difference to parents. So one of their big stresses, I know,

is feeling they have to go to multiple different agencies and we have to stop doing i'm really keen to try and get some practical help for parents and we should say that there are there is an article actually with five bits of advice from emma thomas and from sarah hughes who are two of our guests that's available on the warmers our website right now but emma can i just ask you i mean should you just take time off work if your child is is ill and um they need somebody with them and you're waiting for your CAMHS referral? What are you supposed to do? Just stay at home with them if you're able? I mean, most people aren't.

Most people aren't. And I suppose part of it is coming up with a plan with your child and talking to them openly and seeing what's right for them. Because, you know, some young people may not feel that having their parent around, the pressure for them to, whether it's come out of their room, to deal with it is the right thing. So I think each circumstance needs to be according to what's right for that parent and that child. I think it's also finding other people that your child might be able to talk to. So I think we do have to celebrate young people are amazing at coping and actually also amazing at supporting each other. So what we see all the time from the young people we work with is how that they are looking to support each other and we know that if that child

has a trusted friend or someone they can open up to whether there are some really good charities that are specifically for young people so something like the mix allows an online forum where people young people who are experiencing problems can connect with others in a safe and appropriate way. I wanted to mention that there are positive aspects to this. People do have periods of their life when they are extremely unwell, physically or mentally. It can end and you can come out the other side and we need to acknowledge that often, I should say, with the help of specialists. And we have had emails too, praising CAMHS to the skies. That is worth saying that some people have been hugely helped by CAMHS. the skies that is worth saying that some people have been hugely helped by CAMHS on the whole we don't hear enough of those stories so can we get from

you Lisa some positivity here because I know you yourself went through a tough time as a teen or an adolescent it lasted longer than that I think so yeah I self-harmed as a young person I've got the scars to show for it quite literally and this went right into my career I remember one time I was taken to an emergency clinic at the Maudsley and I got quite bad and they wanted to take me into the ward to stay and the only reason I managed to persuade them that I shouldn't go into the ward is because I had to be on that ward the next day to assess the patients. I was working as a psychologist in the same trust. It became all encompassing. I managed to keep my career just, but it affected everything about my life.

You are a health professional. Yes. And you yourself came up against the kind of prejudice yeah that we yeah yeah so I was once told by a clinical psychologist who was my manager to cover my scars up because it wasn't a professional look it's only in recent years I've been able to talk about my history in terms of my mental health but I found it important to blur those lines between those of us that support people's mental health and those of us that need support. Sometimes it's the same people.

Yeah, well, we can't say often enough, we all have mental health. We all have mental health and we all should be ambitious about it. That's why as a public health professional, I see mental health as my primary aim, my primary aspiration. It's a false economy not to support mental health as my primary aim, my primary aspiration. It's a false economy not to support mental health. Because as we heard in your example, people are having to take time off work, kids' educational outcomes are being affected, which then has a knock-on effect on employment rates. It's such a false economy not to invest in especially young people's mental health. Lisa McNally, Emma Thomas and Claire Murdoch. And if you want to know how best to help your child if they are struggling with a mental health condition,

we do have an article with five pieces of advice from Emma Thomas and also from Sarah Hughes, who's from the think tank, the Centre for Mental Health. That is available now on the Woman's Hour hour website bbc.co.uk slash woman's hour dirty god is the name of a new film which is about a young mother whose face and body have been burned by an acid attack carried out by the father of her child the central character is played by vicky knight she has never acted before and she plays Jade. Now we see Jade trying to adjust to life at home with her friends and with work colleagues with scars that are all too obvious.

He's definitely looking at my face. No, it's not your face. It is my face. No, it's not. There was this one time I was still in hospital and my mum brought Ray to see me for the first time and she comes in

and she clocks me and she goes, she goes, monster. So my mum, my mum, she's like, it's a nice monster, Ray. You know, from in the night garden, see babies, have you seen that? And I'm just laying there looking at her like, she kept on saying it and nodding her head. Kept on saying it.

Well, some make-up and prosthetics were used to enhance Jade's scars for the camera, but actually Vicky herself has been scarred. She was scarred herself in a fire when she was only eight. So how did she get a part in a film when she'd never done acting before? A few years ago, I was on a documentary that I had a really bad experience with. So the casting director, Lucy Pardee,

she found me on my social media and she was looking for someone with real scars. And she came to me and said, we want you to audition for this role. In the beginning, I said no. And it took her a whole year to convince me to do it. And the thing that did convince me was I was going to play a character and not my own story. And I'm so glad I did it.

But what did you think when you began to realise that your own scars would be shown up in close-up detail? In the beginning I didn't know, as not a professional actress, I didn't know what shots were going to be used for what. Because we didn't film it in chronological order. We filmed it all back to front. So when my director, she said to me, can we do a close-up of your scars? I actually broke down on set and I just was thinking, why do you need these?

Why do you want it so close? I mean, I've hid my scars for 16 years now and they were mine to look at, no one else's. And I sort of panicked and thought, well, now the world's going to see it. But when I see the film for the first time and see them close-ups on the big screen, all the bad thoughts went.

It was just like, wow, these are so beautiful. They're a piece of artwork. And it just, yeah, it's just crazy. Now your scars came as the result of a fire when you were very very young only eight years old what happened? I was staying with family and a fire broke out and I lost my two cousins and the man that saved my life he also died and I was left with 33% burns to my upper body. I've got no use in my left hand and yeah scarring from my fingertips to my neck chest so it was it was difficult growing up with scars as well because I was bullied a lot in school

and college. People would threaten to burn the rest of me or burn my house down. I'd be beaten up in the street all the time just because people didn't like the way I looked. What sort of treatment had you had in hospital? I mean, that's a huge amount of burning. Yeah, I had skin crafting and I had them every year for 11 years. So every year after the fire I had to have like two or three operations to release the scarring

so I was in and out of school and yeah I didn't have a lot of friends and the friends I did have were joining in with the bullies but then I was so desperate to have friends in school that I started joining in with what they were saying and I mean like taking the mick out of my own self to make other people laugh I'd say it kind of worked because I did get a group of friends after that but now I realise that they were just as bad as the bullies. Jade actually becomes fixated in the film with trying to find a plastic surgeon who can repair her skin. We won't go into what happens because we don't want to give it away.

But what dreams of surgery that might make you perfect have you had i mean you've obviously had an awful lot of yeah different surgeries through your life but has there ever been that moment where you thought some magic person can fix it growing up by yeah i became obsessed with the idea of having plastic surgery or to change the way i looked my email doctors doctors all around the world, Australia, America. Of course, they're going to come back and say, yeah, well, if you pay a certain amount, we can do it. And that sort of gives you false hope.

And I mean, now, like right now, even if I won the lottery, I would never change the way I look. I wouldn't get any plastic surgery done because yeah this is me if you don't like it don't look at it and why should I change myself to make other people happy. Could you have said that to me before you started making this film? No never. You actually saw yourself up on the screen? Never no I mean two years ago I was yeah I was, very suicidal. I didn't want to live with my scars anymore. I got to the point where I give up. I just didn't want to live with it anymore.

I never had any psychotherapy or anything up until two years ago when I was at my lowest. From growing up with it, I had no professional help. It was just me and my mum that dealt with it. I just hit rock bottom, I guess. And now I just... It's crazy looking back to think I was that low in life. And, yeah, it's mad to think where I am now.

There does seem these days to be an obsession with a look. What impact are you hoping this film will have on the instagram generation the message that i would like people to take away or to give to them is being different is okay everyone is beautiful in their own way and why do we want to look like each other that the world's going to become boring if we look like each other or want to wear the same clothes as someone else and yeah I mean I'm different and I think my scars are quite cool so I stand out and standing out is good. Now I know that you now work in the burns unit where you were actually treated. Yes. What sort of work are you able to do there with people who may be suffering as you did? I think, I mean, I can tell my story and I'm a good role model to, I mean, for someone who gets burnt in the beginning.

And as an adult, mine happened as a kid, so I grew up not knowing any different. But as an adult, you've already lived your life, half your life, and then this happens. And my job, yeah, I mean, it's amazing what I can do. I can sit and talk to someone and you can see that it's, they're sort of thinking, well, this ain't the end because there is a life after having scars and if I can become a healthcare assistant and now an actress, then anything's possible. Will there be more acting? There will be.

I've seen the film. You are good. Thank you. Yes, i've got an agent now so we've got some auditions coming up so hopefully i'll be back on the big screen soon well congratulations to her she has had rave reviews that is vicky knight who's the star of the new film dirty god on monday's edition of women's out we're talking about sexual harassment in the workplace so if this is something that has affected you let us know, email through the website if you can now if you watch any reality television

and Love Island is huge at the moment I think it's fair to say it dominates conversation in our house lots of the women who appear on reality television have very full big lips lips. Hyaluronic acid is used in lip fillers. It eventually disappears and the whole thing has to be done again. But when did these big lips become essential to the Instagram look? Megan Orr has had lip fillers. Nicky Cunningham's daughter has given her mum permission, honestly, to discuss her enhanced lips. And Claire Coleman is a journalist who's written extensively about the subject. So how are lips filled? Using a substance called hyaluronic acid, which occurs naturally in the

body. The version that is used to fill the lips is a stabilised version, and it looks like a kind of clear gel type liquid which is injected into the lips by the practitioner. How easy and expensive is it to get it done? To my mind it's worryingly easy to get it done because lip fillers are classified as medical devices rather than drugs and so you don't have to be medically qualified. Anyone from a hairdresser to a personal trainer or even I could get hold of the stuff and inject it, and that would be completely legal. So from that point of view, it's very, very easy to get done.

And as with all these sorts of things, the costs will vary. If you're getting it very cheap, I'd question why you're getting it very cheap. We're probably talking with creditable practitioners from around £150, but it will depend on where you are, who the practitioner is, how much of the product you have injected. Now, Megan, I know you first had yours at the age of 26. That was four years ago.

Why did you decide to have it done? I suppose I've just always liked the look of fuller, plumper lips. It's an attractive look to me, so I thought I'd try it out, and I liked the results of it. And we were talking earlier about cost and how often you had to have it done. You said you wish you were better off because you'd have it done more often. How much does it cost you and how often do you get it done? So it depends how many meals you get put into your lips.

So I pay £150 and usually have it done once to twice a year. But you can have it done more or less depending I suppose what disposable income you have as well. Now Nikki your daughter who has given you permission to discuss her lips has just had them done why did she decide to have them done? She says it's just to make herself feel better about how she looks but she had lovely plump lips anyway and that's not just a mother's perspective she did and so I don't really understand why she wanted to have them done other than she's 19 and I think she's caught up in all the reality tv the instagram look love island because to me as a mother she didn't she didn't need anything done to her face. She didn't need this.

But don't mothers always think that? Sorry, Nicky, I'm sure all mothers think that. No, because to be honest, I've got three daughters and they all look very different. And they don't all have full plump lips. Alex does. And so of the three of them, I was quite shocked that she would be the one to say, oh, I think I need to have my lips done. Claire, to whom would you say lip fillers mostly appeal? I think there are probably two groups of predominantly women to whom it appeals.

I think there is a younger generation which is very much influenced by social media and also by the stars of social media. You mentioned the kardashians before and i think kylie jenner who i think was 16 when she said that she'd had her lips filled for the first time and is now 21 has been a huge influence on this sort of part of the industry but there is also a fact that as women get older their lips get thinner because the levels of the proteins that are in the body diminish with age and at that point women might choose to have their lips filled to recreate a balance that they might have had when they were younger. Now, that's interesting because one assumes that cosmetic work in the past has usually been for older women who've been trying to look younger. Why is this a fashion craze among young people? I think because non-invasive surgery, which this injectable business is sort of described as, has become part of the fashion and beauty aesthetic over the last 10 years.

It's become increasingly normalised. There are more and more clinics on the high street which are offering these types of services. And it's becoming much more part of everyday life for an awful lot of women. women and I think the thing is that if you look at trends in in the beauty industry more broadly things like colouring hair might not have been the norm several generations ago but now they are things like tattoos might not have been seen as acceptable by previous generations but now more and more young people are seeing them as part of their fashion look as part of how they create their own identity and how they present themselves to the world. Megan how painful is it to have this done? You do have numbing cream put on first but you can feel it when the product goes into your lips and

yes it does sting a little bit. But once they're done and it's settled down how much do your lips feel like they're your own? I mean they they still feel like my lips. They just feel a little bit plumper afterwards, but it's still part of me. And, you know, your body does break down the solution over time. So if it's something you're not happy with in the first instant, it's not permanent. Nikki, I'm sure your daughter isn't going to mind me asking this question or mind what you will say in answer to it because she's probably heard it already. What would you say your daughter looks like?

Well, I think it's quite a plastic look. I personally don't think it's improved how she looks. It looks false to me. She doesn't mind. She knows. She has one version of it and I have another and she knows how I feel. What does she say then when you say you look completely unreal it looks plastic she just um

no i don't she they have this this very closed vision of how they want to look all her friends all this age group she's nine she's nearly 20 they all seem to want to look very similar to me how they all look they all look very similar there's the long curl hair the big eyebrows and the big pronounced lips. Megan what do your mother think when she saw you? She would say exactly the same I think she's threatened to never talk to me a few times if I ever had them done so she she thinks the same. She doesn't agree with it and says exactly the same thing that, why do I need them? You know, I looked fine the way I was before. But I think that's a generation thing as well. And she's never had it done. So she doesn't know what it feels like to have it done. Claire, what do you reckon big lips represent? Is it considered sexy? I think it definitely is considered sexy.

The aesthetic changes. I mean, I think there is, from an evolutionary biology point of view, I think there is certainly something about bigger lips that signifies a certain amount of sexuality and a certain amount of youth as well. So from that point of view, I think there's a certain amount of programming for us to find large lips attractive and for men to find larger lips attractive. I also think that the idea of social media dictating the way that women want to look has a large role to play as well. I know that estheticians that I've spoken to in the past have talked about selfies and selfie culture dictating the sort of things that people want to want to have done within the surgery. Megan, you were taking selfies the minute you came into the studio. And is that all going on Instagram?

I mean, is that what drives you to do this, that you want to look like everybody else on Instagram? No, not at all um i just believe you know if you can enhance the way you look then why not do it i mean me and claire were talking earlier and it's the same way you don't see necessarily so many women with gray hair anymore you know people choose to enhance their looks because that that makes them feel better essentially so i think do you know what, though? I know you're calling it non-invasive, but I feel that it's invasive to do what they're doing.

Putting something in your body, why would you? Nicky Cunningham, Megan Orr and Claire Coleman. Elisa says, What I find disturbing about lip fillers isn't that these women are changing their appearance, it's that they're changing their appearance to all look the same. When you colour your hair, you're trying to look more like yourself. But the lip filler, micro-bladed eyebrow look,

at best emulates the current TV stars, at worst, a rubber mannequin. I'm 30, I don't use lip filler or hair dye, but I have worked with teens. And I do wonder, says Ailsa, what psychological effect this homogenisation is having on younger women. Now, the so-called Wolfpack case has been back in the headlines in Spain in recent days, after the Spanish Supreme Court ruled that a savage attack on an 18-year-old woman was rape and not sexual assault. Back in July of 2016, during the Pamplona Bull Running Festival, a woman was dragged into the hallway

of a building and assaulted by five men. It became known as the Wolfpack case because that was the name of the men's WhatsApp group. Initially, they were found guilty of the lesser crime of sexual assault and got nine years in prison, sparking widespread protests. Megan Beatley is a journalist based in Barcelona. A young woman, she was 18 at the time, was attending Pamplona's Running of the Bulls, which was the country's famous festival. And on the night, or I guess in the early hours of July 7th,

she met five men who were a little bit older than her in her 20s in their 20s chatted with them and when she said that she wanted to walk back to a car where she'd be spending the night they offered to walk with her and then at some point led her into a lobby of the building and proceeded to sexually assault her there. As he said, the problem with this case was that it was not considered rape originally because she was never violently coerced into the act. She wasn't dragged into this lobby. She was let there. And while many people said that, obviously the fact that five older, bigger men led her into the situation would be an intimidating situation

that would compel any young woman to feel powerless and to then let herself be led into the situation. Other people said that it was, right, obviously rape. What would have had to have happened then for this case to be legally defined under Spanish law as rape? Right, so to this day, the law still has a two-tiered approach to sexual crimes. They can either be considered rape, which require an element of violence or intimidation. And again, these terms are quite loose. What does that mean exactly is up for debate. A lot of people say that what this means is that

basically a woman needs to show her bruises to say that she was violently coerced into a situation. Failing that, the crime is then relegated to, quote-unquote, sexual abuse, which is a lesser crime and which is why the men only received nine years instead of the 22 to 25 that the prosecution was asking for. There was also a phone involved here, wasn't there? The fact that the group had exchanged messages, that much we know, but also the attack or attacks were filmed. Yes. So the men were part of a WhatsApp group, as you mentioned, called the Wolfpack,

that included four of the five men and then a few of their friends back in Seville and they had exchanged a few messages first before the crime itself talking about well basically their wish to have group sex with the woman and then after the crime boasting about the exploit the videos that two of the men took on other phones never made it to the WhatsApp group itself, but became some of the most hard evidence in the case because it was the graphic scenes basically of what had happened. The change now is significant because the Supreme Court has overturned the original verdict of guilty of sexual assault. Is that because you believe there has been so much protest about the original verdict? I wouldn't say direct result of it. I think that the public outcry that this case generated definitely brought a new lens onto this and the fact that often these laws are not

interpreted with women's best interest in mind. And I think the fact that, first off, there were a few female judges involved in this latest ruling is evidence that basically that there is a view of interpreting these laws with women's interest. It's to say that five men leading a young woman into a small space and proceeding to rape her obviously does present an element of intimidation, leading a young woman into a small space and proceeding to rape her, obviously does present an element of intimidation,

which previously the judges who were overwhelmingly male just could not see. It does seem, I have to say, when you put it like that, it does seem utterly astonishing. There is now going to be a change in the law, isn't there? There's discussion of it. There's currently a committee, well, a committee was formed two years ago on the heels of the protests to look into the law and propose a change. Change is quite slow. I know that the committee is still deliberating and still has to present a draft, I believe. So it's unclear when exactly this would come about.

But I think more importantly, what a lot of feminists are quite pleased about is the fact that people are pushing for the law to be interpreted differently. Many say that the law does not necessarily have to be changed, but simply understood to have, like I just said, to see intimidation as just the fact that you could be outnumbered by five men, for example. That's the journalist Megan Beatley, and the men's sentences have actually now been increased to 15 years in prison When the journalist Rebecca Reid discovered that she was pregnant she didn't want to wait until her 12-week scan to share the news But when she told friends, family and colleagues Rebecca discovered at 10 weeks that she had actually miscarried

So where does the convention to wait 12 weeks before announcing a pregnancy come from? And how does that convention impact you if actually you end up having a miscarriage? Well, Leah Hazard is the author of Hard Pushed, a midwife story. We talk to her in a moment, but first here's Rebecca taking me back to the moment that she found out she was pregnant. I was delighted and absolutely terrified and had a lot of mixed feelings,

which is one of the reasons I wanted to talk to people, because everybody seemed to assume that you'd be really, really happy. And I was really happy, but I was also absolutely losing my mind with fear. But yeah, basically, I found out in April that I was pregnant. I had a couple of weeks of panic, then was delighted, and went on holiday, started buying maternity clothes, picking out names, ordering baby books, all of the stuff that you're not supposed to do, supposed in inverted commas. Then when I was on holiday, I had a small amount of bleeding, which can be very normal. Came back and went for a scan at the hospital in London and discovered at the scan that I thought I was 10 weeks pregnant.

I'd actually lost the pregnancy at six weeks and one day. So for the last three and a bit weeks, I've been walking around thinking I was pregnant and your body continues making all the same hormones. So chemically, I was still pregnant, but obviously it wasn't going to result in a baby. I then had to have pills to try and remove it from my body, which didn't work. So then I had to have surgery last week. So it's been a fun saga i'm sorry it's a it's a it's a tough time and how much about this did you know before it all happened almost none i didn't even know you could have a missed miscarriage in my head miscarriage meant you went to the bathroom and and it was something from a film and there was lots of blood and then you're in bed

with your husband stroking your hair i didn't have any idea that it could need surgery or pills or anything else and also i thought they were rare i didn't realize one idea that it could need surgery or pills or anything else. And also I thought they were rare. I didn't realise one in four women will have one. That's true, isn't it? And Leah, why is it that the 12-week wait is a convention that most people do buy into? Well, that's a really good question. I think it has quite complicated answers. I think for one thing, it comes with the advent of ultrasound.

And most women do have their first ultrasound scan around about kind of 12 to 14 weeks. And that scene is kind of a rite of passage, you get a good look at the baby. And it doesn't necessarily pick up any major anomalies or anything at that point. But continuing pregnancy, you'll see a fetal heart. And for most women, that is kind of the time that they say, yes, things are going well, I can now tell people. There's also a factual basis behind that in the sense that after 12 weeks, a number of different quite complex processes are complete within the pregnancy and the chance of loss is less. Right, that's important to emphasise. So if all is well at 12 weeks, the fact is that you are

unlikely to miscarry. Yeah, I mean, it's sadly it's always possible, but it becomes less likely after the first trimester, definitely. But because of that, people are, well, I think Rebecca would say, I don't want to put words into her mouth, that this 12 week convention thing makes it harder to acknowledge the very real pain and suffering of losing a child, a baby, an unborn child before a foetus, whatever you want to call it, before that point. Yeah, and I think you've raised a really good point in that it's really important to acknowledge that a loss at any stage of pregnancy is a loss. And the woman is very likely to feel bereaved, whether her pregnancy is just a cluster

of cells, or it's a fully grown term pregnancy and we really need to open up that conversation about bereavement we need to be able to seek support if we're the person in that situation and we also need to be able to give support if we're a friend or family or colleague of somebody who's going through that so as Rebecca saying I think it's really common for women not to really know much about this at all until sadly it might happen to them. And so there's a lot to be said about possibly introducing this in schools. You know, when young people are learning about sexual health and reproductive health, it's really important to introduce the idea that these things can happen. It can be a normal part of your reproductive life and we need to know how to cope with that.

Rebecca? Yeah I think also a lot of the things that would be really useful to know are some of the more hopeful stuff like having one miscarriage doesn't mean you're more likely to have another one. Lots of people will have one and then go on to have totally healthy pregnancies, loads and loads of babies if they want them. Those kinds of things do feel really important. The most important thing is we're just we're so rubbish about talking about grief as a community and we're not great about talking about anything gynecological so the combination of vaginas and grief is just an absolute british nightmare because we can't we can't cope with either of those two things but if people do want to talk to you about it please

don't act like they're doing something strange please don't act like it's weird to want to tell somebody either that you're pregnant or that you've had a miscarriage it's not not weird. I wonder whether, did anybody say anything, and please don't name them, anything really fatuous and unhelpful? Yes, but never maliciously. Just sometimes grief really can bring out the worst in people. And I think that the things that people said that bothered me were either, oh, I imagine you'll wait to tell people next time, which just made me furious, even though it was well-intentioned because it felt like a sort of, almost like they were implying that if I hadn't said anything,

then it wouldn't have happened. Like I jinxed my pregnancy. And also the one that you get a lot is people say, oh, well, at least, you know, you can get pregnant. And yes, I do. But I don't know how great that is because I don't know if I can stay pregnant.

So again, it's people trying to find silver linings, but actually much better to say, I'm really sorry. Do you want to talk about it? Leah, the jinxing thing, the superstition surrounding this, what do you say about that? Well, I mean, there's absolutely no factual basis to this whatsoever. And it's interesting to hear things like the rule or the secrecy gene, because this is really antiquated. I mean, it's unfortunate that we're even speaking about this today because whether or not you tell people or buy anything for the baby or anything like that has absolutely no bearing on whether your pregnancy will continue and it's really unfair to put that onus on women. I mean that you're speaking there

from the position of sound basic medical knowledge and logic and I I have to say, I never felt more deranged than when I was going through this experience. Rebecca? Yeah, I mean, I will be completely candid with you. I bought a baby blanket in Cornwall in the... Well, actually, the pregnancy had ended, but I didn't know. And there's still a part of me that thinks if I hadn't done that, I'd still be pregnant.

And that is ridiculous and stupid, and I feel mad for thinking it but I do. Leah what do you say to a woman who is going through this now actually and will one day want to try again because that that can be that can be difficult? Yeah well obviously I would give my my deepest sympathies to any woman who's listening who's experiencing this now or has gone through it and that includes Rebecca of course as well. I would say to any woman who's hoping to get pregnant again there's every chance that you will. Recurrent miscarriage which is sort of we class as sort of three or more miscarriages really it's something that does

happen but it's relatively rare and most women the vast majority of women who miscarry a pregnancy will go on to carry a successful continuing pregnancy. And if that doesn't happen, if for some reason you have recurrent losses, then definitely seek support, present to your local maternity team or your GP, talk about it. And there are many investigations that can be done to try and understand that kind of underlying cause. And really important to say, it is never your fault. Absolutely. And when midwives counsel women at any stage of pregnancy loss, that's definitely one of the first things to say. And we say it over and over again, because women, of course, will say, if I hadn't bought that blanket, if I hadn't eaten that thing, if I hadn't had coffee or done that, you know, Zumba class or whatever, you know, this wouldn't have happened. And we have partners asking the same questions as well. You know, should I have been watching what she was eating? Should I have told her not to go to that event this that and the other and and absolutely these things have no bearing on loss whatsoever. So important to emphasise that that's Leah Hazard and Rebecca Reid. Andrea on email I

had seven miscarriages over the course of just three years before having a healthy girl just three weeks before my 45th birthday. I felt unable to talk about my utter desperation with anyone except for a couple of very close friends. Even my husband's family chose not to say anything, although they were aware of every single miscarriage. I had to seek CBT counselling to stop me from falling apart. I felt like I was on the edge of insanity at times. I also sought various types of medical help and investigations

and ended up eventually at Liverpool Women's Hospital, where they were doing research into natural killer cells and their effects on foetuses. I did start a course of steroids as part of this research, and the very next pregnancy resulted in my now 14-year-old daughter. I feel incredibly lucky lucky and I encourage women friends to talk about their miscarriages. I wish I'd been able to do that during what I think was the very worst period of my entire life. Yes I think a lot of people will have immense sympathy

for you Andrea and it's wonderful that you had your daughter. Sue says one of the saddest aspects of my miscarriage 22 years ago was a hospital appointment a couple of days afterwards when I had a scan to check that my womb was now clear of all traces of my baby. As I sat waiting for my turn, women and often their partners were leaving the scan room holding visual images of their tiny healthy foetuses. They smiled to each other at the pictures and at me, having no idea of my circumstances. It was absolutely heartbreaking. Sue, thank you very much.

And honestly, I do mean it when I say that we appreciate your emails and we love reading them and you are such an important part of the programme. Next month, it is the Netball World Cup. In fact, Woman's Hour will be coming from Liverpool's World Netball Cup on July the 16th. Looking forward to it very, very much. England are highly rated.

Don't want to heap the pressure on, especially with the football going so well at the moment, but England are highly rated at netball. They won gold in the Commonwealth Games, of course. You won't be able to forget the final couple of seconds of that game. It was absolute torture. Anyway, they came through. Jeeva Mentor played

goalkeeper in that gold medal winning match. And she's written a book. It's called, appropriately, Leap. I'm from a very sporty family. My mum was a very keen tennis player. Her father, very keen tennis player. And my dad was of multi-sports. And so I think it was destined that I'd go down the sporting route and living on the south coast of England in Bournemouth I had the beautiful sea there to explore so sailing and kayaking was also part of my regular daily routine and I guess the attributes that I sort of possessed meant that I was quite good at sport whether it was a racquetball sport whether it was a handball sport, whether it was a racquetball sport, whether it was a handball sport or whether it was just generally being fit. So, yeah, sport was definitely destined for me. But why was it netball that really got to you?

Netball found me rather than I found it. And purely by chance, I mean, I played a lot of basketball at school. I was actually in the boys teams because we didn't have a girls team. And I got to the age where I was probably a bit too old to be playing for the boys because the other schools were starting to complain. And so I had to find a new competitive sport. And a lot of my friends who I was with at school in class played netball. So I joined along with them and the fact that I got to leave early to go play netball at another school. And from that, I just enjoyed this camaraderie that you got from playing in a team sport with other girls on court, being able to compete for the ball.

And I guess all the joys that came along with that. There was a moment when you told people you were 5'11", which was not true. You're a little bit taller than that, which is very useful for netball, obviously. But why did you fib about it? It's so funny. I see so many girls nowadays that are so tall,

but they're very shy of their height their shoulders are hunched over and I'm like you know what own it be confident and there I was to myself saying that I was shorter than I actually was and it wasn't actually through embarrassment or being shy of my height it was actually because I heard that supermodels were five foot eleven and I thought this was fantastic and I thought I'd love to be able to sort of strut around and look my best and I grew past it five foot eleven and I thought I was fantastic and I thought I'd love to be able to sort of strut around and look my best and I grew past it five foot eleven and I thought I'm still going to own five foot eleven just in case people put the connection together that I could be a model as well. So what are you

now? I'm now six foot two. Just a little bit taller. So you obviously got into the junior team when you were 14 the under 17s and you have gone on to do really rather well but as a defender what sort of personality do you need that may be different from an attacker and those people that play netball out there will know that there's certainly different personalities throughout a netball game and i speak about this in my book and i've tried to be diplomatic because i do label the attack end as princesses and purely because they're very pinnacoty they have to make sure they have the right netball in their hands but the end of the day the pressure that they have in terms of if there's seconds to go on the clock and you think of for example the the Commonwealth Games last

year when the seconds were down and we had a chance to score the goal everyone's watching you and that won us the gold medal so yeah you definitely feel see the different personalities between the attacking the mid-quarters who seem to be the engine for the team and a lot more bubbly and up and about and defenders we're the last line of defense and if you think about it we often we don't get the ball very often so the fact that we managed to turn it over we've got to celebrate that but we've got to be much more chilled and calm and i think that really plays into my personality of being laid back but still determined to do what I do. Now how different is netball in Australia where I know you now play most of the time you play for England obviously but you play for an Australian club? Yeah so

I've been going back and forth to Australia since 2008 and I now actually call Australia home so I've been out there for 11 years and purely because they set up a professional league and it's great to see that women's sport moving so early on in that right direction where we could actually make a living out of the sport um and i was excited to be able to give the nod to not only play professionally out in australia but still be able to represent my country and still be able to play for the england roses could you make a living if you were playing it here i think nowadays it's increasing, but not for every player. And you tend to see a lot of the women and the girls that play netball in the English Super League, which has improved.

A lot of them are either studying at a time or still holding down jobs as well. And I think that's the next step for sport and for netball in England. Well, the immediate next step is coming up quite soon with the World Cup. How do you rate England's chances of winning the Netball World Cup? This is going to be my fifth World Cup. And I think we've probably got the best team that I've been involved in. I do also believe that this is going to be one of the toughest World Cups because there's not just the likes of Australia and New Zealand who are ranked sort of one and two.

We've got Jamaica and South Africa that are closely on our heels and I'm excited to step out on court with these girls because I truly believe that we've got the belief now and that's what has probably been missing from England over the last decades that I've been involved with the sport and so our chances are definitely up there and they're there for the taking and it's going to be about who brings the right game on the day. Jeeva Mentor, and fingers crossed for England, of course, in the netball. Thank you very much for listening. You can now go back and enjoy the sunshine. And on Woman's Hour on Monday morning,

we're talking, amongst other things, to an Indian satellite engineer. She's a fascinating woman. And we'll discuss sexual harassment at work. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.