Put your health first
Our focus for this Season is the 4 Ms (Monthlies, Miscarriage, Maternity and Menopause) and I'm delighted to welcome Lilian Ugwumadu as my guest. Today, we'll be talking about putting your health first.
A big thank you to The Surrey Park Clinic for sponsoring this season. Many of us don't prioritise our health. Whether we are juggling work, home-life or family, we often put our health concerns to the bottom of the list. But going through periods, gynae concerns, fertility problems, pregnancy and menopause can be physically and emotionally draining and can affect our confidence. The Surrey Park Clinic can help and will put your health first. Open 6 days a week and offering both virtual or in-person consultations, they are offering our listeners 10% off all initial consultations when you reference this podcast. To find out more, call 01483 454 016 or visit www.thesurreyparkclinic.co.uk.
About this episode
Our focus for this Season is the 4 M’s which are Monthlies, Miscarriage, Maternity and Menopause, and how these can affect women at work. I’ll be talking to some incredible women and experts from around the world to share their real-life stories, advice and tips, to inspire you in your career.
And today I’m excited to welcome Lilian Ugwumadu as my guest. Lilian is a Consultant Gynaecologist at The Surrey Park Clinic. Lilian brings her clinical perspective as well as her experience of being a mum of two, and a manager to many mid-life women. Today’s topic is about ‘Putting your health first’, which is something she explains she has had to get better at!
Resources
The Surrey Park Clinic: The Surrey Park Clinic is offering our listeners 10% off all initial consultations when you reference this podcast. To find out more, call 01483 454 016 or visit www.thesurreyparkclinic.co.uk.
My Confidence Matters Hormone Hubs: A major obstacle for women at work is dealing with the 4 Ms – Monthlies, Miscarriage, Maternity and Menopause. The symptoms and side effects of all of these can be debilitating, impact a woman’s confidence and can lead to many days of sick leave, taking extended time off work or leaving the workplace altogether. Our Hormone Hubs are eight-week virtual group coaching programmes delivered on Zoom for up to eight women at a time to support your women with coaching, health and wellbeing support, access to specialists and providing a support network of colleagues. They can be run as a Menopause Hub, Monthlies/Period Hub, Maternity Hub and/or Miscarriage Hub depending on the needs of your organisation. Get in touch to find out more.
Episode transcript
Joy Burnford: Good morning, Lillian, and welcome to The Confidence Conversation.
Lilian Ugwumadu: Good morning, Joy. Thank you for having me.
Joy Burnford: It's great to have you here. And today's topic is all about putting your health first. And I'm absolutely delighted that The Surrey Park Clinic has sponsored this season for us. And the fact that health and wellbeing is now high up on the agenda of a lot of organisations. It's so important and really, really pleased that you sponsored it so we could bring this conversation to the masses. So thank you. It's a topic close to my heart, as I think I mentioned the other day that I've always been a very healthy individual. And I've then reached the age of about 45. And then things started kind of going wrong. Basically perimenopausal symptoms for me, my periods got really bad and various other things. And suddenly, I was like, oh my goodness, you know, having gone all my life of not really having to worry about my health, thankfully, I've then started experiencing lots of different things. So delighted that you're with us today to bring some clinical experience, but also some personal experience because I know you are female, similar age, got young children, well one young child and an older child and other responsibilities as well. And you've also had your own health issues in the past. So perhaps we could start and just tell our listeners a little bit about what you do and your role at the clinic.
Lilian Ugwumadu: Thank you again Joy. So I am a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist. I care for women who have concerns around fertility, miscarriages, menstrual disorders, and preterm birth. In my day job, I'm also an obstetrician. So I look after women who are pregnant and I help them to deliver their lovely babies and bring them into the ward. At The Surrey Park Clinic we're quite busy. We do look after a whole range of clinic women with clinical conditions. We have got the main work, which is the fertility clinic. We also look after women with menopause, women who require cervical screening, and we've got a sub specialists in colposcopy. We also look after women with genital prolapse who need either medical or surgical therapy to manage those conditions. We have a number of sonographers on site to perform early and late pregnancy ultrasound. We have our own counsellor and we've got a group of other allied professionals who provide complementary therapies such as physiotherapy for pelvic health dysfunction, and other complementary therapies that are required for the host of treatments that we offer.
Joy Burnford: Brilliant. So talking about how women can put their health first we know, you and I both know, that women are busy juggling work home family life. And often have childcare and eldercare responsibilities, too. I know you've got personal experience of this. Can you tell me a little bit about your situation? And also about your own health, if you don't mind? And how you've in the past, put your health not first, and the subsequent challenges of that.
Lilian Ugwumadu: Thank you, Joy. That's a really important question. As you know, the average, you know, working woman or mum like myself, puts in more hours at, you know, at work to meet, you know, work, and also family life expectations. You know, one is expected to excel at work and be the best that you can, contribute financially to the home front, but also significantly to the domestic front. We rarely take time when we're ill. And it's not surprising that our physical and mental health suffers. Reflecting on my personal experience, I recently suffered from low back pain. And despite medical recommendation from my doctors, I struggled to find time to have my treatment. I felt intensely guilty, you know, to take time off work, I worried so much about my patients and worried about my long waiting list, especially with COVID, you know, you hear it on the news, there is a long waiting list for surgery. And I was worried that taking, you know, weeks of work, would significantly impact on my waiting list. But more importantly, I worried about being able to perform my role as a mother, I was miserable. And my mental health suffered. It took the intervention of my family, some very close colleagues at work, but also opening up to my occupational health department to support me, I eventually reorganised my schedule, and was able to work flexibly. And that gave me the time to complete my treatment. And on reflection, I was pleased that I was able to do that. Because now I feel a lot better. My back is not so much of an issue. But importantly, I'm a happier colleague and a happier mum, so one just has to find that time despite, you know, the busy schedule to look after oneself.
Joy Burnford: Absolutely, I think flexibility is absolutely key, isn't it, as you know, I'm writing a book at the moment. And one of the key things in my book is all about flexibility and offering women that flexibility. It's not about being told you have to work from home. It's about saying, actually, you can work when you need to work. And as long as the outputs are, you know there. That's the main thing, isn't it? Brilliant. So moving on to look at what we should be looking out for with our health. And what are some of the triggers, symptoms and signs that women should be particularly aware of in this kind of midlife stage.
Lilian Ugwumadu: So a number of things pop to mind, I would say that women should be aware of symptoms and signs related to abnormal vaginal bleeding. And this could be related to changes to the duration of flow of your menstruation, but also you know how heavy it is as well. One should also be mindful of bleeding in between your periods, after sexual intercourse, and importantly, bleeding after the menopause. Pelvic pain may or may not be related to your menstrual cycle. Also abnormal vaginal discharge, which could be related to or associated with itching or no itching, but any abnormal vaginal discharge should be flagged up. Any symptoms related to the urinary areas, difficulties passing urine or passing more urine than normal or you know pain when passing urine should also be flagged as well. I will recommend that any woman experiencing any of these symptoms should see their doctor, you know as soon as possible for immediate evaluation. I would also like to point out here the importance of the National cervical screening programme. And this is a programme where women are invited between the age of 25 and 64 years to participate in the cervical screening programme. And so it is done every three years from 25 to 49 years of age, and then every five years from 50 to 64 years.
Joy Burnford: Very important. And the other thing was that we talked about before as well as things like checking your breasts for lumps and I think a lot of people are aware of that, probably more so that's probably one of the things that is more in the sort of the public eye, well not public eye but you know what I mean, that people are more aware of, brilliant. So as you know, this podcast season's been all about the four Ms, which are monthlies, miscarriage, maternity and menopause. And I wondered if we could perhaps touch on each of those today and briefly talk about what women should be looking out for, or you know could be experiencing symptoms of so starting perhaps with monthlies, we did a podcast with Julie Collins Powell recently who'd suffered from severe periods. But I know there are other medical conditions. I wondered if you could talk a little bit about that.
Lilian Ugwumadu: Yes. So I enjoyed listening to that podcast Joy, it was really nice. It was powerful and Julie's obviously extremely passionate about this subject, and her work so I really enjoyed listening to it. Now with monthlies is a condition such as endometriosis, sadly, is a common gynaecological condition affecting many women, it will cause when tissues similar to the lining of the womb starts to grow outside of the lining of the womb, and you can find it around the ovaries, fallopian tubes or behind the womb. And the symptoms that will be expressed from this condition will be pain during your periods or even outside of your periods, heavy periods. Some women experience difficulty with sexual intercourse, pain when they open their mouths or when they go to be. And in some women, it could be associated with fertility, it is a devastating condition and it does affect a woman's quality of life. So I would, you know, again, encourage listeners that if they do experience any of the symptoms, they seek medical help early so that they can get the right diagnosis and be put onto a you know, the appropriate treatment pathway, or the gynaecological conditions that can affect one's monthlies would be things like fibroids. Fibroids are benign growths within the within the womb, they can be within the lining of the womb, in the muscle of the womb or outside of the womb, and they can cause once periods to be heavy. And if they're big enough, they can cause pelvic pain. It's also important to know that fibroids are very common, and in the majority of women will not cause any symptoms. They are incidental findings that you would see on ultrasound when you have it for a different reason. But in a small proportion of women who may have, you know, worrying symptoms that require additional intervention, and other conditions such as polycystic ovarian syndrome, I see this quite commonly within my practice. And for some women, this can cause irregular cycles or no periods at all. And this is because it does affect a woman's ovulation. And the concern here is about you know, allowing a woman to have a regular periods to maintain the lining of the womb, and then maybe there is some association with difficulties conceiving again. So I would encourage our listeners again, if you do have any of the symptoms, please speak to your healthcare practitioner or see a gynaecologist to be evaluated early and get some help. Now with regards to miscarriages, and fertility, and maternity, which is a big one. Sadly, again, miscarriages are very common. They affect about one in three couples. So when you speak to you know, when women speak to their girlfriends or you know, close close friends, they would know one or two who have sadly experienced a miscarriage. Miscarriage can either be early if it happens before 12 weeks, or it can be late if it happens within 12 to 24 weeks. I must say here that most miscarriages are one off, and eventually many couples will go on to have a successful pregnancy. Okay, but it is devastating when it happens because you feel that, you know, why has this happened to me, but it's reassuring to note that many couples will go on to have successful pregnancies. Now, a small proportion of women will have, or couples will have, recurrent miscarriages. Okay. And those couples would require additional investigations to understand if there was anything specific to the woman or to the couple that has caused that to happen. I must also say here that you know, even with recurrent miscarriages, and with those investigations, the majority of couples will have normal investigations, and they will still go on to have successful pregnancies or they do need the right support when going through this difficult time. Okay, and that support will come from their clinicians, you know, counselling and close family and friends. Fertility again, also equally devastating when it's happening. It does affect one in seven couples. And I will recommend that if couples are having difficulty conceiving after one year of trying to, do see their doctors and even earlier if they are known to have a medical condition that can interfere with the ability to conceive.
Joy Burnford: Like endometriosis or something like that.
Lilian Ugwumadu: Absolutely like endometriosis. Absolutely. Or polycystic ovarian syndrome or fibroids. If you need to have any of those medical conditions then seek help earlier. Treatment options would include you know medical therapy, surgical therapy or indeed assisted conception which is widely available. With pregnancy. It is exciting. The majority of women are healthy and will go on to have healthy healthy pregnancies. But there are some common symptoms that can occur in pregnancy such as nausea and vomiting in pregnancy is really common. And those women experiencing that would require support, fatigue, back ache. So there's a common theme that you know, people don't talk about. But you know, women do need some support or treatment with these common symptoms that are part of routine pregnancy.
*** Joy Burnford: I do hope you’re enjoying the conversation so far. I want to take a moment to tell you a little bit more about my reasons for doing this podcast. At My Confidence Matters our mission is to advance gender equality through building confidence and capability. I’m passionate about enabling every woman to have the confidence to progress in their career, and I love talking to, and sharing women’s stories to inspire others. This podcast forms a small part of what we do, and if you think there’s room for improvement in the way your organisation understands and manages the issues, barriers and obstacles that women face in the workplace, please do get in touch or tell your HR contact about us.
And don’t forget, if women’s health issues are impacting you at work, the highly experienced team of specialist fertility and women's health consultants, nurses and sonographers at The Surrey Park Clinic are offering you 10% off all initial consultations when you reference this podcast. ***
Joy Burnford: And I suppose it's funny, isn't it? Because I think of women when I was pregnant, too. There's a tendency of when you're in the workplace, that people want to wrap you in cotton wool, and just be like, Oh, can you do this? Because you know, and I think it's not about that. It's actually because I think sometimes women are just like, look, I'm fine, I'm absolutely fine. I can do this, you know, I'm not suddenly incapacitated. But it's, it's understanding when that's the case. And actually, if somebody is suffering, and just making sure that they have the support they need and if there are any difficulties or challenges that they can come forward and explain that to their manager. Yes, I know, from previous things I you know, can I help you carry that, you know, small thing across the office? No, I'm fine.
Lilian Ugwumadu: Absolutely Joy, with women experiencing miscarriages or challenges around fertility. I hear things like, Why me? Why is my body failing me? And the emotional challenges of dealing with these conditions, combined with a juggling act of work, attending appointments, attending for medical procedures, I mean, it must be impossible. It must be impossible.
Joy Burnford: So I mean, they're all such massive areas. You know, we could spend an hour talking about each one. But let's come on to menopause. And we have touched on this as well in previous episodes. But my advice from my personal experience, I spoke to a private doctor when I was suffering symptoms just because I wanted to get a quick answer. And I didn't want to go through the NHS because it was just taking too long and I couldn't get an appointment. So for me that was very important. I reached out to friends and to help me as well. What else could you recommend to women who think they might be perimenopausal? Or what are some of those things that they can do?
Lilian Ugwumadu: So, you know, every woman experiences menopause differently. And there are many resources out there to help women to be fully informed about the condition, menopause, so they can understand, you know, the changes that are happening within their body. Because if you're not informed, then you don't understand it, it's really difficult to know when to seek help and what type of help is, is required. It's also especially important to remember that lifestyle factors can, you know, play a role in one's general health and the symptoms of menopause play out. So things like excess weight, smoking, alcohol. Now all of this does have a negative impact on a woman's general health at any age group and still when you're you know, going through the menopause. So I would recommend that, you know, women maintain a healthy and balanced diet, okay, they refrain from smoking and they minimise their alcohol intake. And I would also recommend that women should adopt you know, or take on well women checks, okay, and this can be done, you know, either on a yearly basis or a three yearly basis. And during those checks, the focus should be on preventive health screening and what in my practice I do is, when women come in for the yearly, you know, well woman check, would focus on blood pressure monitoring, BMI check, you know, looking at your weight and how, you know, I can support them if they do need to, you know, lose weight, breast examination, and mammogram checks, cholesterol screening, looking at their cycles, cervical smear screening and where there are in that in the national cervical screening programme. So it is an opportunity, especially when you're, you know, at that age to think regularly about preventive health care and your general wellbeing.
Joy Burnford: So people could come to The Surrey Park Clinic and say, I'd like a well woman check, because that's the kind of thing, I don't know you know, what's available, is that something you can contact you and say, I'd like to have a well woman check. Is that something that you offer?
Lilian Ugwumadu: Absolutely, yes. So you could just ring the clinic and book in for a well woman check.
Joy Burnford: And you do this virtually as well, don't you?
Lilian Ugwumadu: Yes, so we do offer a range of appointment types. So you can either have virtual appointments, which can be telephone, or Zoom appointments, or indeed a face appointment, depending on what is required, we can start off with virtual and then end up with a face appointment.
Joy Burnford: It's really helpful. And as we talked a little bit before, around things like miscarriage happening in the first 12 weeks potentially, before, you might have told anybody that you're actually pregnant, I think these are the situations where it's very much still seen as a bit of a taboo in the workplace. People don't want to talk about it, and therefore they're suffering in silence, you know, behind closed doors, and all of that, that pressure and stress is having to be taken on without sharing it with people as well, which is even more difficult. Is there anything we can do, do you think to try and sort of try and break that taboo? What's your sort of thought on that?
Lilian Ugwumadu: So traditionally, I think, you know, subjects like this are not talked about openly, there is this unwritten silence rule, you know, talking about miscarriages, for example, or going through fertility treatment, or if you were having problems with your monthlies, you know, nobody talked about it, and you feel that they were the only ones going through it, and no one else was. But we didn't realise that, you know, these conditions, you know, they were really common, and your next door neighbour was going through exactly the same thing, and they wanted to share with someone and the next door neighbour was going through the exactly the same thing, and they wanted to share with someone. Now, in the workplace, I think the fear is that, when it is this cost, it will impact on, you know, the work environment, you know, people feel that, you know, people start to talk about them, it becomes common room gossip, you know if it impacts on their performance at work, their career progression. And this just creates an unhappy atmosphere. Now, as a manager, especially a manager in your workplace, where in a healthcare setting where I also look after, you know, women or colleagues who have got the problems that we're describing at the moment, he just put me in a unique position to have that, you know, sympathetic and understanding ability to not to understand what it is that they're going through. But also be able to signpost you know, my colleagues right direction. So for example, recently, you know, I have a colleague who is going through a miscarriage, didn't want to tell anyone about it, okay. But was having appointments early in the mornings, who's coming into work late, everyone else was complaining about why she was coming into work late, or she was staying later than normal. But nobody recognised that she was seen in later, to compensate for her coming in late. She was unhappy, everyone else was unhappy. What it required was an open conversation. Obviously, we can't force people to talk about these things. People have to be comfortable and happy to open up about what they're going through personally. But as employers, we have to create an environment where employees have to be comfortable to have this open conversation. So we can't have a closed environment. It has to be open, it has to be friendly, and it has to be supportive. And then the onus is on the employee to feel comfortable to have those conversations and get the right support.
Joy Burnford: Absolutely. And then it comes back to the flexibility thing as well, doesn't it? If organisations have that open, flexible mindset, then actually, people don't need to worry about why people are coming in late because it's not really up to them to know, you know, when people are working.
Lilian Ugwumadu: Yeah, absolutely. You know, we can have KPIs, I mean, that's not something that you know, is commonly used, you know, in my sector but we have set it up so we have KPIs within my department. As long as you deliver your KPI, then it doesn't matter how many hours, you know you've spent in the office in the day, so you can go in the morning, have your appointments come in and deliver your task for the day.
Joy Burnford: So summing up, Lilian, it's been such a really inspirational conversation. Thank you for sharing your wise words. I'd love it. If you could give us finally sort of one tip, one top tip for women on putting their health first, what would your advice be?
Lilian Ugwumadu: So I have learned from my personal experience that investing more time in myself, and being healthy, allows me to enjoy my job. It also allows me to look after my loved ones. So my one top tip would be invest more time in yourself.
Joy Burnford: Brilliant. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And if listeners would like to find out more about the clinic, they can go to www.thesurreyparkclinic.co.uk. And we'll put the link obviously in the show notes. And they'll be delighted to hear from anybody who is needing support in these sorts of areas. So thank you so much, Lillian, for joining me today. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Lilian Ugwumadu: Thank you for having me.
Joy Burnford: Thank you so much, bye. And that’s it for this week. Thank you very much for listening and I’ll be back again soon with another Confidence Conversation. If you know anyone who might find this podcast useful, please do pass on the link and it would give me a real confidence boost if you could subscribe, rate and leave a written review (on Apple podcasts here or on Podchaser here). If you like what you’ve heard, sign up for updates where I’ll be sharing tips and notes from each episode and you can send in your ideas for future topics.
And remember you can get 10% off all initial consultations at The Surrey Park Clinic, when you reference this podcast. To book, get in touch at https://thesurreyparkclinic.co.uk/.
Thank you, and until the next time, bye for now.