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NHS England to launch nationwide pelvic health service

The service aims to work alongside maternity and physiotherapy services to support women during and after pregnancy

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NHS England is to launch a nationwide pelvic health service to support pregnant women and women who have gone through traumatic births.

Roughly one in three women in the UK experience urinary incontinence three months after pregnancy and around one in seven experience anal incontinence six months after birth.

One in 12 women report symptoms of pelvic organ prolapse, a condition that occurs when the muscles and tissues supporting the pelvic organs become weak or loose.

England’s nationwide pelvic health service aims to better support women during and after pregnancy.

Backed by £11m of government funding, the plans include offering women a self-assessment of their pelvic health early in pregnancy, educating women on the risk of pelvic floor dysfunction and birth injuries, providing support to those at higher risk of pelvic health problems, reducing NHS waiting times and allowing women to access physiotherapy assessment and treatment.

“For too many women, the joy of pregnancy and birth is tarnished by trauma and pelvic health problems can have devastating ramifications for women’s lives,” said Women’s Health Minister, Maria Caulfield.

“It’s vital women receive appropriate support, treatment and information. From initial antenatal appointments, right through to mental health care after birth, we are determined to support women throughout their pregnancy and birth journey.”

Kate Brintworth, NHS England’s chief midwifery officer, said: “For any women that have experienced a traumatic birth, timely access to support is crucial to help address any issues that can occur.

“To increase the support available, the NHS is rolling out dedicated pelvic health clinics nationally, bringing together expert clinicians under one roof, so women can seek help quickly and easily – and already thousands of women have been supported through our pilot sites.”

Perinatal pelvic health services (PPHS) – run by specialist midwives and pelvic health physiotherapists – are already being implemented as pilots right across England. All areas in England are on track to implement these services by March 2024.

These services aim to work alongside maternity and physiotherapy services to support the prevention, identification and timely treatment of pelvic health problems around birth.

They also aim to reduce the risk of these injuries happening in the first place through close work with midwives and obstetricians and through support for the implementation of the obstetric anal sphincter injury (OASI) care bundle.

The care bundle is a set of interventions likely to improve outcomes for women. Analysis of the effectiveness of this care bundle based on over 50,000 vaginal births found that women’s risk of obstetric anal sphincter injuries decreased by 20 per cent.

“Too many women currently suffer pelvic injuries during childbirth, which can mean long-term complications including difficulty controlling the bladder and bowel, chronic pain and painful intercourse,” said Dr Ranee Thakar, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG).

“This guidance represents an important milestone in the development of vital perinatal pelvic health services, created to improve access to early intervention and support for women and people experiencing symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction.

“We are delighted that this service specification sets out how PPHS will work with maternity units to implement the joint RCOG and Royal College of Midwives’ OASI care bundle.”

She added: “As a college we look forward to supporting the implementation of this important guidance, working with our membership and our NHS partners to help ensure all women have access to high-quality pelvic floor health information, education and care.”

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Pregnancy

New reporting tool targets maternal-fetal teams as pregnancy complexity rises

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A new reporting tool built specifically for obstetrics and maternal-fetal medicine has launched, aimed at teams managing increasingly complex pregnancies with limited time and resources.

Trice Imaging has released Trice Workspace Reporting, which connects imaging, reporting and longitudinal patient data in a single workflow to support faster clinical decision making.

Birth rates are falling worldwide, but pregnancies are getting more complicated. Advanced maternal age, IVF-assisted pregnancies, rising obesity rates and a higher prevalence of hypertension and diabetes mean more cases now require specialist monitoring, advanced imaging and multidisciplinary care.

At the same time, clinical teams are stretched and facing growing administrative demands.

Trice Workspace Reporting brings together customisable reporting, dynamic pregnancy dating and longitudinal patient history with an AI-ready, EHR-interoperable infrastructure, all inside the company’s Tricefy image management platform.

The company says it aims to accelerate standardised and synchronised report turnaround, support timely clinical decisions and improve operational efficiency for fetal medicine services.

“Maternal fetal medicine teams are managing increasingly complex pregnancies while being asked to do more with limited time and resources,” said Mark A. Samii, chief revenue officer at Trice Imaging.

“Trice Workspace Reporting is designed to remove unnecessary friction from reporting by creating a structured digital foundation that supports today’s need for connected clinical workflows.

“It also provides a digital foundation as practices prepare for tomorrow and the evolution of AI-enabled fetal assessment, anomaly detection and outcome prediction technologies.”

Trice Imaging describes its mission as transforming the women’s health journey by connecting physicians, patients and healthcare systems. From independent practices to large hospital ecosystems, it aims to reach the entire women’s health continuum, spanning IVF and reproductive health, maternal-fetal medicine and OB/GYN, and onwards to lifelong women’s health.

For more than 17 years the firm has worked on cloud-based storage, retrieval, display, organisation and exchange of ultrasound medical images and associated information across health environments.

Its wider platform now extends to dynamic clinical reporting, AI-driven workflow optimisation, data analytics and secure patient engagement.

Trice Imaging holds regulatory and data protection clearances in 40 countries. It has offices in Miami and Stockholm, alongside a growing network of global distributors.

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Vespexx signs MOU with global femtech network Femtech Across Borders

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Vespexx, the femtech company behind couples preconception health platform Soonr, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Femtech Across Borders, a global femtech network supporting women’s health initiatives across 80 countries.

The agreement was signed on June 30 at Korea Femtech Summit 2026, the first global femtech summit held in Korea, hosted by Vespexx.

Femtech Across Borders is a global femtech community led by founder Rachel Bartholomew, who entered the field after her own battle with cervical cancer.

The organisation connects women’s health innovators, companies, and institutions worldwide, supporting collaboration across borders.

“For Korean femtech to reach the world, connection with the global community matters more than anything,” said Scarlett Joowon Jung, co-CEO of Vespexx.

“Through our collaboration with Femtech Across Borders, we’ll continue to strengthen our role as a bridge between Korea and the global femtech community.”

Through the MOU, the two parties will work to lower the barriers between Korean and global femtech, raising awareness of women’s health, sharing networks, and exploring future opportunities to collaborate.

Vespexx, in particular, intends to serve as a bridge connecting Korean femtech companies with the global community, widening the path for domestic companies to reach international markets.

The agreement builds on Vespexx’s recent global momentum.

On June 30, the company hosted Korea Femtech Summit 2026, bringing together femtech leaders from Korea and abroad, and used the occasion to announce the launch of Femtech Korea, an industry network that brings Korean femtech companies together and connects them with the world.

The partnership with Femtech Across Borders extends that effort outward, linking Korea’s domestic network to the global community.

Learn more about Vespexx at vespexx.com

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Cancer

Postpartum breast cancers may be biologically more aggressive, new study finds

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Breast cancer diagnosed within three years of childbirth, especially the first year, may be biologically more aggressive, a study suggests.

The findings add to evidence that postpartum breast cancer may be a distinct form of the disease.

They also suggest the period of greatest biological risk may occur earlier than previously thought.

The study was led by investigators at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr Nimmi Kapoor, associate professor of surgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and senior author of the study, said: “We’ve long recognised that breast cancers diagnosed after pregnancy can behave differently, but we haven’t known when that increased risk is biologically strongest.

“Our findings suggest that the first one to three years after childbirth represent an important window when some tumours may have more aggressive characteristics.”

Breast cancer rates among younger women have been rising, and scientists have been investigating whether women having their first child later may help explain some of the trend.

Pregnancy causes major changes in breast tissue. Previous studies have found that cancers diagnosed soon after childbirth are more likely to have aggressive features and worse outcomes.

Researchers have not agreed on how long the period of increased risk lasts. Some studies define postpartum breast cancer as occurring within one or two years of delivery, while others extend the period to five or even 10 years.

To better define the period of risk, the team studied whether tumour biology varied according to the time since a woman’s most recent childbirth.

The study involved 385 women aged 45 or younger with early-stage, hormone receptor-positive and HER2-negative breast cancer who were treated at UCLA between 2011 and 2024.

Hormone receptor-positive cancers grow in response to hormones such as oestrogen or progesterone. HER2-negative cancers do not have unusually high levels of a protein that can promote tumour growth.

Each tumour had been assessed using the Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score, a genomic test that measures the activity of 21 genes linked to the risk of cancer returning and the potential benefit of chemotherapy.

Researchers grouped the women according to the time between their last childbirth and breast cancer diagnosis.

They compared women who had never given birth with those diagnosed at different intervals after childbirth.

The team then examined whether recurrence scores and other tumour features differed between the groups and whether any patterns remained after accounting for factors including age and lymph node status.

Women diagnosed within the first year after childbirth had significantly higher recurrence scores than those who had never given birth.

This suggested biological features associated with a higher risk of the cancer returning.

Scores were also higher, but to a lesser extent, among women diagnosed during the second and third years after delivery.

Women diagnosed within three years of childbirth were nearly three times more likely to fall into a higher recurrence score category than women who had never given birth.

They were also more likely to have higher-grade tumours, meaning their cancer cells appeared more abnormal and potentially more aggressive under a microscope.

Women diagnosed more than three years after childbirth did not show the same consistent increase in recurrence scores.

The findings also suggest that standard clinical measures, including tumour size and whether the cancer has reached the lymph nodes, may not fully capture the differences in this group.

Gene expression testing appeared to identify biological risk that was not always reflected in routine examination of tumour tissue.

The researchers said reproductive history could therefore provide additional context when genomic test results are interpreted in younger patients.

Despite the more aggressive genetic features, women diagnosed within three years of childbirth did not have significantly worse short-term outcomes.

After about four years of follow-up, recurrence and survival rates were similar to those among other patients in the study.

Researchers said one possible explanation was that women with higher-risk tumours received more intensive treatment, including chemotherapy, ovarian function suppression and newer targeted therapies.

The findings also suggest that aggressive tumour biology does not necessarily lead to worse short-term outcomes when patients receive effective treatment.

The researchers said larger studies involving several institutions and longer follow-up periods are needed to confirm the findings.

They added that postpartum status may need greater consideration when breast cancer is assessed and treated in younger women.

Kapoor said: “Our findings suggest that the years immediately following childbirth represent a unique biological window for some breast cancers.

“Understanding why these tumours behave differently may help us better identify patients who need closer monitoring or more tailored treatment approaches.”

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