'LET'S START A CONTRACEPTION REVOLUTION!'

HEALTH CAMPAIGNER AND TV PRESENTER DAVINA MCCALL GOES TO EXTREME LENGTHS IN HER FIGHT FOR BETTER FAMILY PLANNING

- JEN PHARO

Davina McCall sparked a healthcare uprising when she investigated the menopause and empowered a generation of overlooked women.

Now, after watching her youngest daughter Tilly, 19, struggle to find the right contraception, Davina is turning her attention to the contraceptive pill with a new Channel 4 documentary.

The TV presenter is shocked that more than 60 years after the pill was invented, women are still enduring a litany of side effects if they don’t want to fall pregnant.

The 55-year-old, also mum to Holly, 21, and Chester, 16, says, “Both my daughters took the pill, and one of them got on absolutely fine with it but my younger one had a terrible time in sixth form with her mental health and she has often wondered whether her pill contributed to that.”

Davina was just 15 when she secretly obtained the contraceptive pill against the wishes of her father.

“I was madly in love with my first love,” explains Davina. “I said to my dad, ‘I’d quite like to go on the pill,’ and he said, ‘Well, wait until you’re 16.’ And I thought, ‘I know what’s going to happen, I’m not going to wait until I’m 16,’ which I thought was quite a grown-up attitude to take. So I took myself off to a sexual health clinic and they were very nice and very kind, and they suggested a pill and I took it.”

Looking back at her difficult teenage years, Davina wonders how much of a role synthetic hormones might have played. Now a health and exercise guru, she has been open about the drug use that started in her teens and escalated into full-blown heroin addiction in her twenties.