July is Fibroids Awareness Month, a time to shine a light on uterine fibroids, non-cancerous growths that affect millions of women, particularly those of African descent.
For women over 40, the biological clock ticks louder, but for Black and South Asian women in the UK and US, systemic barriers, cultural stigma and lack of tailored support turn a challenging journey into an isolating battle.
Black women experience infertility at nearly twice the rate of White women, often linked to higher rates of fibroids, tubal issues and other conditions. Yet they wait 12–18 months longer to seek care due to medical mistrust, dismissal of symptoms, cost barriers and implicit bias. In the UK, Black patients start IVF later (average age ~36) and have lower birth
Menopause is not a sudden event. It is the culmination of a hormonal story that begins in childhood and unfolds across decades. Yet for too many women, particularly Black women and women of colour, that story has been fragmented, oversimplified or silenced altogether.
If your relationship with menopause has felt confusing, medicalised or even traumatic, you are not imagining it. Much of what we are told about hormones is incomplete and much of what is missing reflects who has historically been excluded from research, diagnosis and care.
Menopause does not arrive as a clean break from menstruation. It arrives carrying the full history of every cycle you have ever had.
Heavy periods, painful cramps, fibroids, anaemia, hormonal imbalance, medical dismissal, these do not disappear at menopause. They shape how the brain, uterus, immune system and nervous system respond to the transition. For many women, especially Black women, menopause is not relief. It is the point where years of unmanaged gynaecological stress finally surface.
In every doctor’s office, there is a quiet vocabulary that determines how women’s pain is recorded, treated or dismissed.
Words like dysmenorrhea, menorrhagia and amenorrhea are not just medical jargon, they are signals, codes that unlock care or close the door to it. Yet who gets to use these words and who gets heard when they do, tells a bigger story about health inequity than most of us realise.
Behind each clinical term lies a lived reality, an experience that reaches far beyond a line in a medical textbook. These words describe the rhythms and disruptions that can shape a woman’s physical, emotional and professional life.
Proud Sista!
Proud Sista!
Proud Sista!
Proud Sista!
Proud Sista!
A lot of people do not realise this but there are gene mutations that affect people’s fertility and they can be mitigated with simple lifestyle changes. For instance an MTHFR gene mutation means that you cannot process standard Folic acid and need a different type that will bypass this deficiency and ensure that you get the proper nutrient to sustain your pregnancy. It’s only about £12 but you need to do a gene test to know. Livewello.com tests for most of these genes and you can use Gene chat to interact with your dna test on the site to get this info in plain language and share with your doctor. There are examples of these scenarios here: https://livewello.com/scenarios/hormones-mood/infertility-elena
This example mentions how PCOS is heavily implicated in infertility https://livewello.com/scenarios/hormones-mood/pcos-nina
Never give up. There are answers out there.