A lot has changed for Amy Hart since her appearance on Love Island in 2019. Since stepping out of the villa, she is no longer a 26-year-old flight attendant, but a content creator and host of the Love Island podcast.
But one thing that hasn't changed is Amy's ever-relatable appeal. The now 30-year-old mother to baby Stanley has established herself as someone in the public eye that women, particularly those going through a fertility journey, can identify with, making her recent partnership with femme health all the more apt. HELLO! sat down with Amy herself, as well as femme health founders Stefanie Meachin and Laura Cartwright, and fertility counsellor Tracey Sainsbury, to hear all about the latest venture and how it will break down female health taboos.
The launch of femme health
Femme health is a newly-launched female-led online platform that aims to offer support to women regarding the female health and fertility issues they face. The platform is an online store featuring over 40 brands and 160 products relating to period support and fertility testing, menopause support and vaginal health that also offers signposts towards charities and organisations that can help women in these areas.
Amy is the company's brand ambassador, a perfect fit for the online creator who has been so open about her own fertility journey. "I've been talking about fertility for years," Amy tells HELLO!. "Obviously with my own journey, with my egg freezing and I'm about to start another fertility journey once I've got married this year. I'm a bit apprehensive but excited about that because the first time I got pregnant it was natural but unplanned so trying for a baby is going to be a bit different. But now I'm working with Femme I'm looking forward to getting all the products and the advice."
Amy's fertility journey
The podcaster embarked upon a fertility journey at the age of 28 when she received a low AMH (anti-mullerian hormone) level on a test she took on Loose Women. Amy decided to freeze her eggs and has previously said since falling pregnant naturally with her partner, Sam Rason, that she will donate her eggs if she doesn't use them in the future.
The TV star has also been open about receiving a positive HPV test after a smear and hopes that by partnering with femme health, she can further her online work by speaking to women about issues that are deemed taboo. "It takes out the middle man of the clinics, it makes fertility issues more accessible to people," she says, speaking about the impact femme health will have. "I think a lot of time making that first step to actually phoning a clinic is a lot so being able to go online is a lot more private."
Being a best friend figure
"I'm an oversharer," she continues. "I've shared about my HPV. I'm an open book and I always say I get to do loads of nice things for my job so my moral debt is paid by sharing stuff that to make people feel less alone."
Through being open about the female health issues she has faced, Amy has been able to position herself as someone online that women can turn to and confide in. "I'm really lucky that I have got a nice group of friends. Not everyone has that," she admits. "When I was pregnant I'd ring my mum every day like 'How many muslins do I need?'. I get messages from people all of the time saying, 'I have nobody else I can ask so I'm asking you'."
"With all the brands I work with is that sort of familiarity with my community online," says Amy who has one million Instagram followers. "I am just a normal person. You have your mega celebs who live in £35 million mansions but then I'm just a normal person, I live in a normal house, I have a little boy. I feel like I'm quite relatable to other people."
Her decision to freeze her eggs
Amy counts herself lucky that when she decided to share her decision to spend £12,000 on egg freezing, she received little backlash. "I think [it was] because I had a medical reason," she reveals, alluding to her low ovarian reserve. "I've seen some people get backlash where it's like, 'Why are you doing this? You're just doing this because you can't be bothered to have a baby'. We should all have that choice. Feminism is all about choice. Life is all about choice."
What she wishes she had known
Even someone like Amy who has shared her experiences with her audience is still learning along the way. She tells us that there was a certain surprise waiting for her in the delivery room when she had little Stanley, one, which she wished she had known more about whilst pregnant - that 10cm dilated during childbirth is referring to the cervix, not the exterior of the vaginal opening.
"I didn't know that until I was in the room," she continues. "And I said to my best friend [whose daughter is four months younger than Stanley] about it and she said, 'We are both researchers, we are both clever people, how have we got to 39 weeks and not known that until we're in the room."
There is one personal female health goal topping Amy's priority list. "The mummy MOT is on my list of goals for this year," the 30-year-old reveals. "They check your pelvic floor, they check to see if your abs have knitted back together."
"A lot of people won't do that because they won't think to put themselves first. But you need that. You need to be well after having your baby to look after your baby," adds Laura Cartwright, who has launched femme health with Stefanie Meachin and Sarah Barnes.
Where femme health began
The trio were inspired to launch the brand when they learned that one in seven people have fertility issues in the UK and that there is a lack of a one-stop destination for products and advice for women in that area. "We nurture women from her first period to her last," says Stefanie. "When you first get your period, all you're told is don't get pregnant, here's the pill, and then 10 years down the line and they want to get pregnant and it's not happening, you don't know anything about it."
"We've launched a podcast this week and the aim of that is to talk to people like Amy, but also to talk to people we know, real women who live ordinary everyday lives and talk about their experiences and have some of those conversations," adds Laura. "Before we spoke about it [ovulation discharge] we thought we were the only ones and then suddenly you open that door and have that conversation and you feel a lot less alone."
Taking on a team of experts
Fertility counsellor Tracey Sainsbury is also part of team Femme. She is on hand to offer her wealth of experience to the founders as they provide women with the support they need. She says her support is "all about scaffolding". Tracey tells us: "40% of people going through IVF can have suicidal thoughts, 80-90% experience anxiety and depression, in 2016 research and 2020."
The counsellor adds: "No matter how much support clinics put in place, we live in a pro-natal society where women especially are judged by others about whether or not they have a child."
She hopes femme health will provide empowerment through choice with the accessibility to experts it provides. "It's often not embarrassment [women feel] by the time they get to me, it's isolated," Tracey tells us. "It's that no one understands or knows what to say and if you're on a fertility journey you can feel a bit intimidated or overwhelmed."
A new era of women's health
Stefanie says that with Amy on board, she looks forward to "welcoming in a new era of women's health". "We talk about self-care…we need to move on now and I think with fertility it's very much behind closed doors. It's getting better now, people are opening up but there's still a huge taboo about fertility." The coming together of these women is certainly a powerful place to start.
DISCOVER: Taboo-busting women we want to be best friends with
www.femmehealth.co.uk has launched in a bid to help the 1 in 7 people trying to conceive. It’s the first fertility and conception online department store, securing brand partnerships with proven fertility-related products. Amy Hart is a brand ambassador for femme health.