For Fibroid Awareness Month, St Lucia Times journalist Keryn Nelson opens up about her own fibroid journey – and the quiet crisis many women endure alone. In conversation with Iyanola Wombmanhood, she explores why breaking the silence and demanding better care can’t wait.
My fibroid diagnosis was delivered with such casual indifference that I couldn’t tell whether the doctor was trying to calm any alarm, or whether she genuinely believed my body could simply handle the two masses she found along the wall of my uterus.
For her, one of them, the larger measuring five centimetres, was of mild concern. But she cited my fitness level, my regular gym routine at the time, and my deprioritised desire to have children as reasons not to recommend treatment. Just monitoring.
Since then, my concern about their presence has been minimal. But I’ve been struck again and again by the number of women who’ve shared that they too have, or had, fibroids. Some are close relatives.
Considering that World Metrics notes uterine fibroids are the most common benign tumours in women, affecting up to 70-80 per cent of women by age 50 globally, it’s not just the number that surprises me, but how quietly it’s all been endured.
I’ve since wondered how so many people find out, manage, and in some cases rid themselves of fibroids without ever talking about it? And if there’s been so little conversation, how could there ever be clarity on how to prevent them? Learning that July is Fibroid Awareness Month gave me the push to look a little deeper.
Breaking the silence
I sat down with April Louis, co-founder and vice president of Iyanola Wombmanhood, a nonprofit made up of everyday women committed to raising awareness around reproductive health. The organisation has been working across Saint Lucia to challenge stigma and promote open dialogue.
From her perspective, silence around fibroids and women’s health more broadly stems from the way society has long devalued women’s well-being, particularly when it doesn’t concern fertility.
“It’s not always that somebody’s telling you that your health does not matter,” she says. “What it is, is almost like an expected path for women. We worry about whether or not a woman can have a child. But we’re not as focused on women’s quality of life.”
That reasoning struck a chord. I realised many of the women around me no longer viewed fibroids as something worth discussing, once they’d had children.
Yet fibroids can cause painful, heavy and disruptive periods, among other symptoms.
Louis’ own experience with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) has shaped her understanding of how these issues are routinely dismissed, even by women themselves.
“As women, we don’t even realise that we are facing that stigma and discrimination,” she says, noting that many healthcare practitioners are brought up with the same ingrained ideology, not to be alarmed by women’s pain, even when they seek help.
“When women say they have issues with their period, it’s perceived as ‘every month you have a period, why are you making it such a big deal?’ So, it’s this idea that it is natural for women to experience pain, natural for women to have these problems.”
Where’s the data?
Scientific studies have shown that uterine fibroids are especially prevalent in women of African descent. Given that Saint Lucia’s population is predominantly of African heritage, it suggests a high prevalence of fibroids locally.
But Louis argues that without data, it’s hard to get anyone’s attention.
“If we could go somewhere and say 90 per cent of women in the workforce miss at least one day of work every month because of fibroids, people would start paying attention.”
The government has made progress, she acknowledges. There are sexual and reproductive health clinics at some wellness centres. Schools are now distributing free menstrual products. Import duties have been removed from sanitary products.
“These are important steps,” she says.
“Yes, they’ve passed some policies… But as for us having a concrete policy on women’s reproductive health, we don’t.”
Creating space for conversation
That’s exactly what Iyanola Wombmanhood was created to do: break the silence, reduce stigma and create room for open, informed discussion, not just about fibroids, but also about conditions like PCOS, endometriosis and adenomyosis.
As part of Fibroid Awareness Month, the group is hosting a webinar on July 26 and a pop-up info booth in Vieux Fort on July 27.
For more information about the events or to follow the group’s ongoing work, find Iyanola Wombmanhood on Facebook and Instagram.
