Is it something we need to worry about?

No, I don't think we need to worry about it.

I think we need to understand more about it because what we are now finding is that there are associations between problems in reproductive health and in many other areas of health, but they're not quite my, my, uh, area of expertise, uh, and changes in the, in the microbiome.

Um, so for example, um, in women who have miscarriage, which you and I have talked about before on this program, we know that there's a disturbance and the, the one particular bacteria, the Lactobacillus, uh, is depleted and therefore other bugs, um, become more prominent, uh, and they can influence the way that a pregnancy implants.

But possibly the most exciting, uh, um, thing that I think in the moment in reproductive health is the possibility that, um, the microbiome in the vagina can be altered, um, by, uh, t- treatments, probiotic treatments and, and, uh, that will actually reduce the incidence of premature birth.

And extraordinarily, despite a massive research globally, there have been very few advances in the causes and, well, the treatments of or trying to prevent premature birth, which is a major problem in terms of, um, disasters in pregnancies.

Yeah.

But no, we are what we eat, and so there's a lot of stuff like this.

What are your comments or thoughts about that? Is this something that can change and what needs to happen to support that momentum for sustainable change for women?

We've got to ensure that we make the right way the easy way, both for girls and women and for the people who are caring for them.

And we've also got to get everyone to understand that you can't fix this with health and the Department of Health or NHS England alone.

This is a multi-sector effort and that, you know, I learned a long time ago and it's really been reinforced to me in the last couple of years in this ambassador role, that you can travel a lot farther and a lot faster if you collaborate and you can travel even faster if you stop fussing about who's getting the credit.

So I think it's about making everybody feel that they've got an important role to play and that we work with Department of Education, with Work and Pensions, with the Home Office.

I mean, there are so many things that just cannot be sorted in health alone.

So I think that's an understanding.

But it's it's about having that collective energy, I think, within systems to be able to say, actually, we need to do something differently and really give a platform to the people who are least likely to have their their needs heard.