Get the Gloss - March 2019

Women’s health and fertility expert Emma Cannon on why periods need a rebrand and how frank conversations around fertility can make us all healthier

I grew up in a household of women - I’m one of five sisters so someone always had a period in our house. I am now mother to two daughters Lily, 23, and Violet, 17.

My mother told us that having five girls was the greatest achievement of her life, while at the same time telling us NOT to get pregnant. I, like many women, grew up confused about what being a woman and being fertile meant. The only cautionary tale we had about being fertile was the teenage mum pushing her baby in a pram who’d been excluded from school and seemingly life and any sort of a future. Being a woman was something to be overcome rather than be celebrated……