Petra Bagust

So what we're talking about here is from a little bit dry to Sahara Desert, we've got a range of women experiencing the skin of their vagina vulva, urethra, bladder.

So that whole system that looks after women

you know wastewater and reproductive health and sexual pleasure there are changes going on that can have really significant impacts on comfort lifestyle how you feel as a person yep

is that true yes like in rest times it's kind of one of the things falls UTIs pneumonia pneumonia they're all kind of linked okay oh yeah no that makes sense my father's been very very unwell with the UTI yes yeah can overwhelm the immune system

So I want to go in a couple of directions.

I'm not of the mentality that perimenopause, menopause and postmenopause, acknowledging that menopause is one day, an arbitrary day, a year after your last menstruation.

That transition, which can be anywhere from two to 10 years, and then it's the rest of your life.

So at 53, I am looking at hopefully another 20 plus years of my life post-menopausal.

And I am not thinking that I've been designed in such a way that I don't survive and can't make it, and it's going to be terrible from here on in.

And I don't want young women either coming into perimenopause going,

I think conversations like this, the purpose of a conversation like this is to say, can you pay attention to your body?

Can you notice what's happening with your urethra, with your bladder, with your vulva, with your vagina?

And can you, with curiosity and compassion, pay enough attention that you get what you need to support you?

Yes.

Yes.

Awesome, you're going for 40, I'm going for 20 plus.

I need to get on your train.

Okay, so there are, I mean, birth injuries notwithstanding because that is a time when that system is under pressure and prolapses can occur.

And then there can be, I guess, minor or major prolapses.

There are things that we can do to tend to our joints, our skin, the skin you can see, the skin you can't see.