I'm not good at asking for help'

Having suffered two miscarriages, Olympic swimmer Rebecca Adlington wants more people to open up about emotional trauma

- MITYA UNDERWOOD

Four-time Olympic medallist Rebecca Adlington has enjoyed an incredible summer presenting for the BBC poolside at the Paris Olympic Games. But now, the down-to-earth sports star is back to her reality of being a busy mum and business owner.

The presenting job, alongside Clare Balding and Mark Foster, came after what had been a very difficult year for Rebecca and her husband of three years, Andy Parsons.

The couple suffered the devastating loss of their daughter, Harper, during a second-trimester miscarriage in October last year.

And Rebecca, who had also miscarried the previous year, is determined to use the experience to help others talk about not just miscarriage, but emotional traumas in general.

"A horrible topic like miscarriage is hard to listen to and hard to talk about, but what happened to me really opened my eyes to the power of opening up, not only for yourself but for other people," she tells us.

"I was never going to talk about it publicly but because we announced the pregnancy, I sort of had to. I couldn't believe how many people got in touch, especially people saying they'd been through something similar but hadn't spoken to friends or family about it, and they just wanted to tell someone.

"That really brought home the question of, 'Why don't we speak to each other more? Why don't we feel comfortable talking?', and not just about miscarriage, but about those hard topics in general." Rebecca, 35, who has teamed up with Interflora for a campaign encouraging people to tackle difficult topics, says she had to overcome a number of barriers to speaking openly, beyond it simply being a "very, very private" experience.

As a mum with two children - nine-year-old Summer, from her first marriage to former swimmer Harry Needs, and three-year-old Albie, her son with Andy - even allowing herself the space to speak was hard.