News
Making a splash: How WUKA’s Period Pool Party is transforming confidence in the water
By Ruby Raut, Founder & CEO of WUKA
At WUKA, we’ve always believed that no girl should feel sidelined by her period.
As a sustainable, innovation-led period underwear brand, our mission goes far beyond products — it’s deeply personal.
I grew up in Nepal, where menstruation was steeped in stigma. I wasn’t allowed in the kitchen, had to isolate in huts, and I didn’t even see a swimming pool until I moved to the UK.
At 24, I finally learned to swim — but even then, swimming during my period wasn’t an option.
That personal frustration became the spark for launching our period swimwear: so no girl would ever have to sit out like I did.
A Movement Begins in the Water
In 2024, we took that mission further with the launch of the WUKA Period Pool Party, a safe, inclusive space where girls can swim on their periods, try WUKA swimwear, and talk openly about menstrual health.
🏊♀️ Eastleigh, Hampshire
Our first-ever pool party saw over 40 girls aged 9–15 join us for a transformative day at Places Leisure Eastleigh.
Olympic and Commonwealth swim champion Hannah Miley MBE dived in with the girls, sharing her journey of self-belief, body confidence, and resilience.
Together, we broke the stigma while making a splash.
🏊♀️ Stonehaven, Aberdeen
Next, we headed north to Hannah Miley’s hometown of Aberdeen.
With around 70 girls in attendance again, we brought joy, education, and period-proof swimwear to the stunning open-air Stonehaven Pool, WUKA Makes Waves Again.
These aren’t just product events — they’re immersive experiences with try-on stations, live demos, parent-teen workshops, photo zones, and take-home gifts.
But more than anything, they’re about freedom, confidence, and belonging.
Why This Matters
💬84 per cent of teenage girls in the UK say their interest in sports declines after starting their period, often due to embarrassment, fear of leaking, or discomfort with available products .
💬Nearly 70 per cent of teen girls report skipping sports or swimming due to menstruation, not for lack of ability, but for lack of appropriate support.
Girls who haven’t yet started using tampons, due to age, discomfort, cultural reasons, or parental guidance, are often left with no viable swim options. WUKA swimwear fills that gap with comfort, coverage, and confidence.
Even elite athletes like Cate Campbell have admitted to missing training sessions out of fear of leaking. This problem affects everyone, and it’s time we end it.
Backed by Data, Driven by Demand
Our survey of 210 teen swimmers revealed that 46 per cent avoid swimming during their period, mainly due to fear of leaks and lack of confidence
Parents told us that WUKA swimwear gave their daughters the freedom to swim again — often for the first time during their periods
A Call for Policy Change
We’re not stopping at products and parties.
Our #PeriodsAreNotAPenalty campaign is calling for the removal of the 20 per cent VAT still applied to period swimwear in the UK — despite the zero tax on pads, tampons, and period pants VAT Removal on Period Swimwear.
This is a matter of equality, inclusion, and access. Girls shouldn’t miss out because of cost.
What’s Next?
We’re committed to hosting one WUKA Period Pool Party per year, in partnership with local leisure centres across the UK.
These are not just brand activations — they’re community empowerment events, driven by purpose.
They help keep girls active, informed, and included. They show families that periods don’t have to be scary or shameful.
WUKA isn’t just about what you wear. It’s about what you believe in.
And we believe every girl deserves the right to swim, anytime.
Learn more about WUKA at wuka.co.uk
An early PET scan after one cycle of chemotherapy may help predict how aggressive breast cancer responds to treatment, a study suggests.
Research led by The Institute of Cancer Research, London and King’s College London suggests that an early scan taken after one cycle of chemotherapy could help predict how well a patient’s cancer will respond to treatment.
The study focused on patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), an aggressive form of the disease in which cancer cells lack receptors for the hormones oestrogen and progesterone, as well as the HER2 protein.
Patients with TNBC are usually treated with chemotherapy prior to surgery. While many respond well, residual disease at surgery, typically around six months later, is associated with a significantly poorer prognosis. Identifying people sooner who are unlikely to respond remains a major clinical challenge.
The research explored whether using PET imaging shortly after treatment begins, rather than relying only on MRI scans later in the treatment process, could provide earlier insight into how a patient’s cancer is responding. Twenty-two patients were recruited, with fourteen undergoing FDG-PET scans before treatment and after the first cycle of chemotherapy.
The findings, published in Clinical Cancer Research, showed that changes seen on PET scans after just one cycle of chemotherapy were strongly associated with subsequent response, including whether there was no detectable cancer, known as a complete response, by the end of treatment. Importantly, early PET response showed stronger associations with treatment outcomes than standard mid-treatment MRI scans in this study.
Being able to identify patients who are not responding well at an early stage could allow clinicians to adjust treatment sooner or consider alternative approaches. These findings may also support future strategies to better tailor treatment intensity to individual patients.
The study also compared two types of PET tracers, FDG and FLT, to determine which was most suitable. While both met the study’s technical criteria, FDG-PET was selected for further evaluation due to its better image quality, greater consistency and wider use in clinical practice.
The research also explored how imaging changes after just one cycle of chemotherapy relate to the body’s immune response to treatment. Biopsies taken before and after the first cycle of chemotherapy showed that an increase in immune cells within the tumour was strongly associated with both early PET changes and improved treatment outcomes.
The researchers emphasise that these findings now need to be validated in larger studies. Future work will aim to confirm these results in broader patient groups and explore more accessible imaging approaches, such as ultrasound, alongside PET and MRI.
Sheeba Irshad, professor of cancer immunology at King’s College London and lead of the Breast Cancer Now KCL Research Unit, said:
“In patients who had PET scans both before treatment and after the first cycle, we found that this early scan could predict whether they were likely to achieve a complete response by the end of treatment. These findings highlight the potential of early imaging to guide treatment decisions, and now need to be validated in larger, modern clinical trials.”
Andrew Tutt, professor of breast oncology at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, said:
“Research that helps us determine early who is already benefitting from standard neoadjuvant chemotherapy and who might benefit from clinical trials to find better treatments is vital. This study shows that FDG-PET may have great value in this regard. We hope to be able to design studies that further investigate and validate these findings.”
The study was supported by funding from King’s College London and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, Breast Cancer Now, Cancer Research UK, and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity.
We are excited unveil the three finalists competing for one of the Femtech World Awards’ most coveted honours: the Startup of the Year Award, sponsored by Future Fertility.
This award celebrates an early-stage company making a bold impact in women’s health through innovation, vision and execution.
The winner will be announced at our virtual ceremony on 19 June, with the decision made by a representative from category sponsor Future Fertility.
Congratulations to the shortlist and thank you to everyone who entered or nominated.
Startup of the Year Shortlist
Hello Inside is the first women’s health AI company to turn daily metabolic signals into outcomes women feel and healthcare systems reimburse.
Women’s health has long been under-researched, and current AI benchmarks fail on women’s health questions roughly sixty percent of the time.
Hello Inside built the architecture to close that gap.
Across four years and 12,000+ validated metabolic profiles, three in four women improve at least one symptom within ninety days.
They lose four kilograms in three months, moving from overweight into the healthy range. In a clinical study with Alisa Vitti’s Flo Living, 91.9 per cent reduced PMS burden within sixty days.
U-Ploid is an early-stage biotechnology company tackling one of the most fundamental challenges in fertility care: the sharp, age-related decline in egg quality that limits outcomes across IVF and egg freezing.
While much of the field focuses on improving assessment and selection, U-Ploid is developing a first-in-class therapeutic approach designed to improve egg quality itself by addressing the biological causes of age-related chromosomal errors.
Supported by strong preclinical evidence and now advancing into human studies, U-Ploid combines scientific rigour, regulatory discipline and long-term vision to help redefine what is possible in fertility care.
Gestational diabetes is a strong risk factor for future type 2 diabetes, even in women with normal pre-pregnancy weight, according to a study at the University of Gothenburg.
The researchers call for earlier testing and better follow-up.
“Our results show that gestational diabetes functions as a kind of stress test for the body’s ability to manage blood sugar, and identifies women with a greatly increased risk of future type 2 diabetes”, said Jon Edqvist, PhD and affiliated to research at the University of Gothenburg, and operating room nurse at Sahlgrenska University Hospital.
Gestational diabetes is a special type of diabetes that can affect pregnant women.
The condition is defined as elevated blood sugar levels, without previously known diabetes. Treatment involves self-monitoring of blood sugar, advice on lifestyle habits and, if necessary, medication.
Identifying gestational diabetes is important because the disease increases the risk of complications such as preeclampsia, the need for a cesarean section and high birth weight for the baby.
Those who have had gestational diabetes are also at higher risk of later developing type 2 diabetes.
In the current study, published in eClinicalMedicine, researchers now show that gestational diabetes is a strong indicator of future risk of developing type 2 diabetes, even in women with normal weight before pregnancy.
Elevated risk even with normal weight
The study is based on data from the Medical Birth Registry on just over 1.15 million first-time mothers in Sweden, who gave birth between 1987 and 2019. 16,870 women with confirmed gestational diabetes were compared with age-matched women without the diagnosis. The median follow-up period was nine years.
The results show that women with a BMI of 35 and above, i.e. severe obesity, had an almost tenfold increased risk of developing gestational diabetes compared to women with normal weight.
The risk of subsequent type 2 diabetes also increased with higher BMI, but it was significantly increased even with normal weight, which the researchers describe as particularly worrying.
More follow-up and more studies
The researchers behind the study welcome the recently updated recommendations on gestational diabetes in Sweden, where a higher proportion of pregnant women at increased risk are expected to be offered testing earlier in pregnancy, and if necessary, interventions.
“Diagnostics and care of gestational diabetes have looked very different in different parts of the country,” said Annika Rosengren, professor at the University of Gothenburg.
“There is a need for both improved follow-up after gestational diabetes, and more studies that investigate how such follow-up affects future health and prognosis”
Entrepreneur4 weeks agoWomen’s digital health market set to reach US$5.28 billion in 2026 – report
Insight4 weeks agoWhy the UK’s fertility rate keeps falling – and what it means if you’re trying now
Wellness4 weeks agoWomen’s HealthX unveils Northwell Health, Corewell Health, Biogen & more to headline Chronic Disease stage
Mental health3 weeks agoWhat Maternal Mental Health Month reveals about where postpartum support actually breaks down
Fertility4 weeks agoToxins and climate harms having ‘alarming’ effect on fertility, research warns
News3 weeks agoNIH Grant terminations disproportionately impact minority scientists, research finds
Adolescent health2 weeks agoWUKA brings Period-Positive Pool Party to London Aquatics Centre to keep girls swimming through puberty
Fertility4 weeks agoResearcher explores weight loss jab impact on PCOS