Cancer in and post-pregnancy may often be missed or mis-diagnosed. Pete Wallroth, Founder and CEO of charity Mummys star shares their latest campaign to encourage those who are pregnant, and us all, to #BeBodyAware, to increase earlier diagnosis.
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For over 10 years now we have worked to raise awareness, through our work at Mummy’s Star, about the importance of spotting the early potential warning signs of cancers when a person is pregnant across the various disciplines that can have input into the care of families.
It is a difficult area across maternity and oncology to measure success in awareness raising, beyond the awareness of us and our existence as a charity, which in turn sees more families seeking support from us both emotionally, and financially.
There is though, a much more impactful point within this, and its not the numbers being diagnosed and that we see; but how early they actually receive investigation from initial presentation of a symptom through to a diagnosis being received. Why?
Well in its simplest terms, for the majority of families, as with any cancer, the earlier the diagnosis takes places, the wider the potential net of options is for them, both from a treatment and surgical perspective.
We have run many campaigns over the last decade during our coordinated Cancer and Pregnancy Awareness Week every June, focussing much of our time on health professionals; how they can escalate symptoms, what pathways there are for them to refer to begin investigation, how to maintain choice in and around pregnancy despite a cancer diagnosis and the importance of active listening and meeting families where they are psychologically be it in pregnancy, post-natally or in grief for a lost pregnancy.
This year, however, we turned the focus more towards the person right at the centre and their awareness of their own body.
Its easy to say “if you notice anything unusual, raise it with a professional”, but what if you don’t actually know what to and not to expect during pregnancy or post-natally, particularly for those experiencing a first pregnancy?
How do you not campaign in a manner too alarmist that the normal becomes escalated and creates anxiety unnecessarily?
We have used the phrase “If it doesn’t feel or function right, then its better to get it checked” but we recognise that this even is more pertinent to those who have experienced pregnancy before, to and beyond delivery.
So, this year, we focussed on a gentler, but we hope just as impactful message of #BeBodyAware and of yourself.
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Touch your body
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Hear your body
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See your body
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Move your body
It is always important to carefully draw out who our aim is with our campaigns as it can be all too easy, (just as we have had much debate in the past as a team), to want to say everything at once about our work. But then it risks skimming off the edges of those we need to hear the message, so this was driven down to:
- Women and birthing people aged 17 – 45 years.
- People who are already pregnant or looking to become pregnant one day.
- People who have not heard of Mummy’s Star before
- People who might relegate their own self-care / body-awareness below the needs of their infant or who might struggle to find time to maintain body awareness / self-care.
The knock-on impact of the campaign too has been that, because of the new interest generated earlier in the year from the Health professionals awareness week, these new contacts were all very attuned to what we now did with this campaign and as such were right behind the message helping us to in turn reach their audiences. This included Donna Ockenden’s Team https://www.ockendenmaternityreview.org.uk/support-for-families/cancer-support-in-and-around-pregnancy/ , the Maternal Mental Health Alliance and many others
Overall, the campaign has been a huge success. This is from the perspective of opening the conversation, reaching new families, its resonance with those that have previously been diagnosed and the strong will, desire and take up from new audiences to ensure this message is shared amongst their circle, including requests for the toolkit which can be downloaded from our campaign page https://www.mummysstar.org/cancer-pregnancy-awareness-week
Pete Wallroth,
Founder & CEO, Mummys star
July 2024
