For new mothers, the first months with their baby are full of excitement, spent planning for the future. But for singer Michelle Heaton, now 38, it was a time spent planning a double mastectomy.

‘I was only 33 and still breastfeeding my first baby when I decided to have both breasts removed,’ she says. A year before, Michelle had discovered she had the BRCA2 gene, which significantly increases the risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

Dubbed the ‘Jolie gene’, BRCA was relatively unheard of until 2013, when actor Angelina Jolie revealed she had the BRCA1 variant and had a preventative double mastectomy and her ovaries removed.

But even before the world was applauding Angelina’s openness, Michelle…