Ferne McCann exudes confidence. But, like many of us, the former cast-member of The Only Way Is Essex has faced her crises of confidence.
And they didn’t get harder than shortly after the birth of her daughter Sunday, when she started suffering bladder leaks. She’d leak when she sneezed, lifted something heavy or went on a long car journey. “It’s uncomfortable, it’s embarrassing,” the 29-year-old tells HuffPost UK. “But I feel like it’s only embarrassing because not enough people are talking about it.”
At first, McCann would joke with friends that she’d sneeze and a little bit of wee would come out, but the problem soon worsened to the point where it would prevent her from doing normal, everyday things. It was a tough time. At just 27, she was struggling with something she’d never even heard of. And the experience left her feeling “really rubbish and unsexy”, she admits.
Plucking up the courage to speak to her personal trainer about it, she was advised to see a women’s physiotherapist. And it was then she found out she had a prolapsed bladder, where the front wall supporting the bladder weakens and it starts to descend into the vagina.
It all sounded scary but then the physio told her she needed to start doing pelvic floor exercises and – empowered with the knowledge that things could improve – McCann vowed to make these exercises a key part of her daily routine – as second nature as washing her makeup off.
A prolapsed bladder can happen as a result of childbirth, but it can also occur naturally over time, particularly around menopause when hormone levels drop. Symptoms include urinary difficulties, discomfort and leaks caused by everyday activities like sneezing, coughing, physical exertion. McCann says she prefers to use the term “bladder leaks” rather than “incontinence” – unsurprisingly, perhaps, considering the level of shame attached to the label.
The NHS estimates 34% of women experience incontinence at any one time, though gynaecologist Dr Brooke Vandermolen told HuffPost UK the figure is likely to be a lot higher as many women are too embarrassed to seek help. A recent survey by Always Discreet suggests two thirds of women in the UK experience bladder leaks, but that 85% know exercising their pelvic floor muscles can help prevent or improve the situation.
Discussing how the leaks impacted her mentally, McCann says: “I wasn’t crying myself to sleep about it, but I wasn’t throwing a party either. I’m quite level-headed and I was like: ‘You know what, I’ve got to get this sorted and I want to go and see someone’.”
“Women’s health needs more of a spotlight.”
There were a fair few months of struggling in silence before she finally opened up to her PT about it. As a new mother, she can understand why so many women don’t seek help for the issue though, or put off doing so.
“I think with women, especially when you’ve had a child, self-care kind of goes out of the window and you’re like ‘oh it’s fine, my baby’s my priority, I’ll just put up with it.’ But you shouldn’t put up with it,” she says. “Women’s health needs more of a spotlight.”
It’s this belief that led her to speak publicly about her experiences for the first time in September last year. She was “so nervous” to open up and found it really “daunting”, she explains, but the public’s response was “unbelievable”.
Since then, she’s been inundated with messages from women who’ve experienced similar issues. Women who no longer feel so alone.
Finding time for self-care as a new mum (never mind someone in the public eye) can be pretty tough, but McCann has figured out a routine that works for her. She’s also discovered the value of therapy.
When her ex-boyfriend Arthur Collins (Sunday’s father) was jailed for carrying out an acid attack in a London nightclub, McCann started seeing a therapist.
She’d already suffered from paranoia and anxiety, which joining TOWIE fuelled. “I always thought that people were scheming stuff behind my back,” she told Heat in an interview in 2019. “It is a structured reality TV programme, but you’re always fighting for screen time. It was amazing and it provided so many opportunities, but that was the start of my anxiety.”
She’s now been seeing her therapist for the best part of three years, she tells HuffPost UK – but that’s not something she’s always felt comfortable disclosing.
“It’s definitely something I think is important to openly speak about,” she says. “For ages I really shied away from saying that I had a therapist, because I felt like people were going to think that I had a breakdown or there was something wrong with me, when actually I think it’s so healthy to offload and speak about your life with someone who is completely impartial.”
McCann says one of the biggest lessons she’s learned in therapy is how to react differently to certain different situations. “It’s all about repeated, learned behaviours,” she says. “You might have learned a defence mechanism, or coping mechanism, when you were younger that you are still doing as an adult and it might not be quite right. But oh my god there’s so much work – it’s all about self-work and I think that’s very important.”
Other ways she stays mentally well include listening to sleep meditation every single night – “I actually can’t get to sleep without them” – and exercising. “I think it’s so healthy for your mind as well as your body,” she says of the latter “It’s almost like therapy, because it’s just an hour’s session where you can literally just focus on what you’re doing – and it really sets you up for the day and puts you in a good headspace.”
Exercise was something McCann struggled to maintain as her bladder issues worsened, so she’s happy to be able to get back on the treadmill again, since getting to grips with her pelvic floor exercises. “There are signs of improvement,” she says, her voice full of relief. “I now go to Barry’s Bootcamp class, I’ve upped my cardio and I can get back on a running machine.”
She wants all women to think of pelvic floor exercises as a part of their daily routine. “I’ve got my skincare routine on lockdown, I do it on autopilot – I do my eye makeup remover, my toner, my cleanser,” she says. “If we can get into the routine of squeezing and doing our pelvic floors, then we’re on to a winner.”
How to do your pelvic floor exercises
Pelvic floor exercises strengthen the muscles around the bladder, vagina or penis, and back passage. Both men and women can do them.
You can feel your pelvic floor muscles if you try to stop the flow of urine when you go to the toilet, says the NHS, although don’t do this regularly as it can harm the bladder.
To strengthen your pelvic floor muscles, sit comfortably and squeeze the muscles 10-15 times in a row. Make sure you don’t hold your breath or tighten your stomach, buttock or thigh muscles at the same time.
When you get used to doing pelvic floor exercises, you can try holding each squeeze for a few seconds.
Strengthening the pelvic floor muscles can help stop incontinence, treat prolapse and make sex better.
Ferne McCann has partnered with Always Discreet to encourage women of all ages to do pelvic floor exercises to ease and alleviate bladder leaks.