Mumsnet - please can you sort out all the Jade posts?

But they don't. If my experience is typical they cover you with a sheet from the waist down then ask you to draw your knees up and let your legs fall apart. Got told to relax my hands and breathe deeply. Wasn't told the technical details but was told what they were using, and what to expect.

My mum has her smear done privately when she visits friends in Denmark! She says the whole process is just more friendly and they explain what they are doing and they let you see on a screen what they can see (I think - well according to her they do anyway - they use different instruments!).

I think (and am going wildly off topic here) that a big problem with the way smears are done here is that they assume that everyone is comfortable with their bodies, or knows what is going on, so they expect women to come into the clinic and remember what to do and how to position themselves etc. Plus I think we put far too much emphasis on our vaginas being sexual organs which makes women or young girls feel embarrassed about anyone having anything to do with them.

I saw something like that on the local news.
what a shame they couldn't have said how the new thing they use is not so cold. also they had this horrid scarey looking chair in the picture. I think a man must have directed it.

I'm also annoyed that I've heard a few soundbites of women saying stuff along the lines of "Well they hurt and they're embarrassing but it's so important to have one" - well done for putting people off.
I can say in all honesty that my smears have never hurt, and as for the embarrassment, it is one nurse (unless you want more) in a room - if you ever want to give birth then you'll go through a lot more situations like that!
Sorry, I realise I'm preaching to the converted here, but do these news people not THINK?!

actually, it isn't multiple partners or early sexual encounters that is the problem, you only need one who carries the virus*.

I don't know about smoking but I don't think Jade was a smoker

(*happy to be corrected there though)

Interesting how NO ONE has said that actually NOT smoking and avoiding early sexual encounters is far more effective in reducing cervical cancer than any smear?

I've just been on the World Service talking about this with Lucy Mangan!

I think this has done more for screening than anything the government can do is because we have seen what cervical cancer can do. We all ignore statistics and advice but to see someone normal (as in just a very young woman/mother)go through it, has made it all very real

I know many women that put off a smear but now people are seeing what holding off can do, it has made it real

It's the same with any illness, if we know or see how it happens, we are more aware

Too right FioFio - I can't help thinking maybe this was the reason Jade was put on this earth. (And of course to produce 2 beautiful children) I think we are all here for a reason, and no one else could publicise something like Jade.It's as if it was all fate, her shooting to fame etc.

How many 27 year olds have achieved as much as she did?

I haven't expalined my self very well...but I hope you know what I mean.

I totally agree with the OP.

Well it was a case of sudden and surprising honesty, georgiemama.

Oh, I was about to whole heartedly endorse the first line of your post.

Oh well.

Disregard the first sentence of my last post. Please.

It is because people are shallow and unable to apply their minds.

Jade Goody has succeeded where the government and health professionals have failed, not because she is a genious, not because she ever set out to do this, but because she is a reality tv star, and the only thing that seem to take peoples interest today is reality tv. Before people had a "macro cosmic" view, taking in the whole world and its issues. Now, people have enough to contend with the various "micro cosmos"es on offer, from twitter to big brother, facebook and forum, where they focus on numerous unknown entities.

The focus have shifted from One Big Famous Super Ant to the aunt colony and small segments within.

She was not a nobody. She was a anybody.

actually, there's probaby lots wrong with it and it's why our culture is so debased, but for the purposes of this discussion...

McCanns then, see I said I had no time for it all

no, not saying anythin's wrong with it per se, just that it puts her in a different place, that beingi the public eye, being talked about is her job, whereas the mccanns just went on holiday.

beanie - like you too. I don't think anyone is falling out are they? We're not, that's for sure.

daftpunk and aitch might be about to.

mwah! to beanie.

and McGanns?

They are televising the funeral apparently noddy, is a proper production.

aitch....what's wrong with selling yourself to the press?....most "celebrities" do it..

lol- see now I am getting fraught and I loke you all so don't want to fall out with any of you over differences in opinion about Jade Goody!

am off home so no more work time to waste on the internet arguing about people who have died!

laters! maybe I will be more chilled out later :D

Oh yes, I see. It is all a bit of a storm in a tea cup though isn't it?

People deal with death differently, I guess, and some people are comfortable being upset about it, and some people mistrust that and have a more demanding response to both death, and Jade herself.

There isn't only one desirable or appropriate response I don't think.