Mumsnet Campaigns: Women's Health

Women’s health is a huge issue for Mumsnet’s millions of users. Our very first campaign, back in 2009, called for improvements in miscarriage care after a well-loved forum user recounted her horrendous experience in the hospital system in Scotland. Over ten years later, our Better Miscarriage Care campaign is still going strong. Every two years we run a survey of women who’ve experienced pregnancy loss, to see what they say about the care they received. You can see the results of our most recent survey here.

The state of postnatal care in UK hospitals is another abiding concern for our users, who say that the time spent on a postnatal ward in hospital can be the worst part of giving birth (yes - even worse than the actual ‘giving birth’ bit). If a new mum manages to avoid the postnatal ward she may still suffer from inadequate infant feeding support, poor mental health support, and a lack of care for any physical injuries she sustained while giving birth. Issues such as birth trauma, incontinence and painful sex can affect women into the menopause and beyond. Our Better Postnatal Care campaign draws all these issues together and fights for better provision for all women.

And speaking of the menopause: for a number of years now we’ve joined together with our sister site Gransnet to find out how women are affected by a lack of access to HRT, incomplete information, and difficulty in finding well-versed GPs who can offer really good advice.

Last updated: August 2021