I wanted to introduce you to the wonderful speakers at our Viva La Vulva tour. They made it special because THEY are special. On stage are women who work in healthcare with stories as diverse as everyone of you, all with a common aim to build community and empowerment for women’s health.
Over the next few weeks we are featuring those very special women so that you can get to know them too! First up Aoife Harvey https://linktr.ee/womenshealthdublin 💜
Aoife Harvey is so much more than a pelvic floor therapist.
Dynamic and full of energy, she oozes enthusiasm to help us all feel better and eat more kiwis… You can find her on instagram here Aoife Harvey Physio (@womenshealthdublin) • Instagram photos and videos
*These Q&A sessions have been slightly modified for clarity from their original recording
Aoife- Why Did You Choose Your Career?
I started in 2015 doing Women’s health courses bc the evidence was so strong for them
And having done my Master’s in Physiotherapy, I didn’t find good and strong evidence about pelvic floor treatment. So I decided I need to know more about this.
Then after a year I became pregnant and became a women’s health physio patient myself…. That changed my passion and understanding for what women go through during pregnancy and after vaginal delivery and their post natal journeys!
When you experience things yourself and seeing the lack of care and postnatal care - for a lot of women that’s when their pelvic floor issues may start. That just grew my passion and insight and I decided to dedicate my whole clinic and career to women’s health physiotherapy and I stopped doing sports and back pain. I really just focused on women’s health. Changing my clinic was a little bit scary- an only women’s health pelvic health clinic - no more general physiotherapy. Now that I’ve furthered myself and progressed and had another baby coming into my 40’s (!) it's not just the postnatal mom and pregnant women I’m so passionate about.
Now it’s the hormones, the endometriosis, the painful intercourse- all stages of women’s lives from their teenage years right up to the day they leave this earth.
There are problems they’re going through, really intimate, private, & taboo issues that women have been experiencing, probably since the beginning of time. These issues have not been treated or emphasised enough, or talked about enough and so these women haven’t sought help.
Now there’s a big shift. The shift came with Joe Duffy and the whole menopause thing and The National Women and Infant programme was set up and there was a whole big attention given to women’s health in Ireland now. Being part of that is just brilliant!
There’s media coverage and a big shift in the HSE. Women are getting educated and they’re seeking help and they’re talking to their friends, their mums and their daughters, and I see the generation below us being so much more open.
My generation in their 30’s & 40's is starting to be open. But older women are still very private about it and having private gynaecologists and just suffering in silence. So the more work I do in this area, the more passionate I get about it.
As a physiotherapist it is so empowering to me how much I can help and women are so appreciative of that. In my day to day job, I can make such a difference in their lives
What is the most fulfilling part of what you do?
My most fulfilling role in my job is not only improving symptoms, like bladder leaking.
It’s getting women back to exercise and getting them to socialise or helping them with their intimate relations, helping them with their bowels, helping them with their functions and quality of life.
You don/t realise how much in life you’re struggling with until things improve. While these are not life and death issues, they really affect women’s confidence, their psychological welfare, their mental health, their socialising and their exercise. That is all quality of life. How are they supposed to live a healthy life if they can’t exercise, if they can’t meet friends and are really embarrassed struggling with these symptoms?
So changing people’s lives every single day really gives me gratification and then the education piece. Explaining to people via social media or in person or at conferences, what is actually going on with their bodies, what’s their normal anatomy.
To think that women go along in their lives not understanding how their body works. It’s not their fault! It's the lack of education.
What’s your favourite thing about Viva La Vulva?
My favourite thing about Viva La Vulva is… loads of things! It's so fun and engaging and open. It’s not just a group of women sitting in a hall being talked to with a powerpoint presentation and some things going over their head.
We’re using good terminology- like easy non medical ways to explain things.
We’re talking about taboo topics in a really relaxed way to make people think these are not taboo topics.
There’s women of all ages there.
They’re going from crying to laughing to dancing to hugging to drinking one too many prosecco (LOL)- you know?
It’s so much more than a women’s health education event. It's bringing women together.
It gives them a platform to stand up and ask questions in front of a room with 300 women. The more women do it, the more women beside her have the confidence to do it. They’ll come up to us and talk to us at the end and it’s so different from standing at the front of the room and then leaving. Everyone is coming, not in groups, but as individuals and then they're making friends, they’re looking around, they're nodding their heads, but they’re still having fun.
And that’s what we hoped it would be. It is empowerment and education and helping women with their issues but in a really nice friendly fun environment where they can let their hair down and not feel so, you know, uncomfortable or awkward about it. It’s just all encompassing. It’s what we love about it.
It’s a women's health event tied into a leaving cert holiday with your best friends… or a fortieth holiday with your best friends….depending on your age. 🤣
What do you think women should know about VLV?
I think women should know some women are into going to retreats, yoga things and going out with other ladies and some women are not.
I just want them to know it’s not your average kind of retreat. You’re not going to be talked at and lectured to. They are going to laugh and they are going to cry and they are going to find it so entertaining. They’re going to have such a good night out. But they’re going to leave knowing things they never even knew they needed to know. You know? There’s going to be nuggets of information and EUREKA moments for each and every woman in that room no matter what her age is. And they’re things that she needs to know for her quality of life and her benefit and her daughter and her mothers and passing on that information to other people. So you are going to just have the best night but you are going to learn what you didn’t even know what you needed to know.
Was there anything you learned at VLV that you didn’t already know?
So personally I learned alot from Jennifer Rock on skincare because (laughs) I’m clueless! And the way she puts it- it’s so simple. I had a couple of moments where I was like, omg I never knew that…! OMG I'm not doing that properly! That was a big one for me.
I also learned from Laura when she was talking about perimenopause - that was something that rang quite true for me. How you can be feeling absolutely awful (can I say the word shite?) for a month or two and then you think about making an appointment. Then you’re fine again for another few months. That really rang true for me because that is what happened to me.
So I knew perimenopause was a rollercoaster….definitely going yeah- feeling absolutely awful for a month or two- I think I need HRT -I think I’m going to see the doctor. And then I'm grand again and I don’t do anything about it. That was a big one for me.
Em- and then lastly- The Sucker.
When Shauna (our VLV Sexpert…stay tuned) is just so open about intimate toys, particularly this sucker instead of a vibrator. I bought it, I have used it, it is AMAZING.
What I’ve learned from my patients is that women who have sensitivity of the clitoris, either reduced sensitivity or over sensitivity, that there’s something else out there they can use.
I have met so many women who have never ever orgasmed in their life. They can have more medical reasons behind it and I’m going to talk to them about The Sucker because every woman deserves to have an orgasm 💜
Having someone like Shauna at the event makes talking, in IRELAND!, about intimate toys and pleasure and make it just seem, not like a kind of porn type thing that we shouldn't be talking about, so much more open.
And the amount of people standing at her stall - I think that rang through to the whole room!
Viva La Vulva Dublin Tickets on Sale Here (ticket price includes one fabÜ blend worth €30)
Viva La Vulva 2.0 | NCH | Live Music & Events | National Concert Hall
