From First Period to Menopause: DIVA and Coral on Closing the Women's Health Gap

Tell us about DIVA and Coral, and what it means for these two brands to come together to support women’s health and wellness? 

Carinne Chambers-Saini:  DIVA has always been at the forefront of breaking taboos and destigmatizing women’s health. We’ve come a long way since the DIVA Cup was launched in 2003, but we’re also still aware that women face so many frustrating barriers when it comes to their hormonal health. We’re all learning together that painful and uncomfortable symptoms of periods and perimenopause are actually not normal, and that better care is possible. Being able to partner with Coral creates such an important bridge—we’re connecting to solve the real needs of people looking to support their menstrual, pelvic, and sexual wellness.

Fiona Lake Waslander: DIVA and Coral are both mission-driven Canadian trailblazers. DIVA spent decades breaking the taboo around menstruation; Coral is doing the same for perimenopause, menopause, and women’s sexual health. Coming together means supporting women through the entire hormonal arc of their lives. It’s a partnership built on the belief that whether you are 15 or 50, you deserve evidence-based care, sustainable products, and a community that refuses to let you suffer in silence.

You built something that fulfills a real need in women’s health and wellness. What was the personal moment or experience that made you realize, “I have to create this”? 

CC-S:  It really starts with my mom, Francine. She grew up in the 60s when pads still had belts and pins. She spent years trying to find something better, and in 1992 she discovered a menstrual cup. It was made of rubber and kind of looked like a toilet plunger, but despite its shortcomings, it changed how we both thought of periods. The rest is history, really. We spent two years redesigning the menstrual cup from the ground up. 

FLW: I’ve spent my career building businesses and mentoring women to get a seat at the table. But I noticed that brilliant women at the peak of their careers were stepping back or dropping out. It wasn’t a lack of ambition; it was a lack of support in their health. When you are navigating brain fog, insomnia, and anxiety, breaking the “glass ceiling” starts to feel secondary to just surviving the day.

The real issue is that perimenopause isn’t a one-time event; it can be a decade-plus-long transition that requires a proactive and comprehensive approach. We created Coral to bridge this care delivery gap. We replace fragmented appointments with a continuous, preventative model. Proper midlife care is the missing link in the equity conversation—we are here to ensure this life transition doesn’t take away what should be the most powerful chapter of a woman’s life. 

Women’s health is chronically under-researched and underfunded. How did that reality shape the way you approached building your company from day one? 

CC-S: Oh, it shaped everything. Women and gender-diverse people’s bodies have historically been underrepresented in medical studies, and that’s led to a gap in understanding around common conditions, symptoms, and what “normal” even means. When my mom and I entered the market in 2003 with the DIVA Cup, we were walking into a category that was dominated by disposables, controlled by older men, and treated as something shameful and hidden. Plenty of women buyers in those days were grossed out by the cup, too. Nobody was investing in innovation because no one wanted to talk about it. 

From day one, education, advocacy, and stigma-breaking weren’t side initiatives—they were the foundation of our business strategy. 

FLW: It forced us to be scientifically rigorous. Because women’s concerns have been dismissed or “normalized” for so long, we knew Coral had to do more than just provide a prescription—it had to deliver a completely new standard of care. 

In Canada, women spend 24% more time in poor health than men. This isn’t a biological inevitability; it’s a care gap. We’ve closed that gap by taking an evidence-based, root-cause analysis approach. By using deep health data and comprehensive bloodwork, we move away from the “one-symptom-one-pill” episodic model. Instead, we provide personalized, data-driven paths that allow women to not just manage symptoms, but to proactively optimize their metabolic, hormonal, and long-term health. We’re giving women the evidence they need to finally take the driver’s seat in their own health journey. 

There’s a lot of noise in the wellness industry right now, and not all of it is backed by science. How do you decide what information or innovation is worth putting your name behind? 

CC-S: We go back to our core mission every time: science-backed products, education, and advocacy. These really are the filters for every decision we make. If we can’t stand behind something with full transparency about what it does, why it works, and who it’s for, we don’t move forward. 

When it comes to new product innovation, I’ll be honest—it often starts with a problem I’m trying to solve for myself. And the further we go down the road of product development, research, and testing, I know I’m not alone. That is why we expanded beyond menstrual care and into pelvic wellness last year with our Cleanser, Moisturizer, and Refresher. I ask myself: does this genuinely improve someone’s experience? Is it better for their body? Would I use it myself, or allow my daughter to use it? Our mission has always been to give people confidence and information, not to sell them a problem. 

FLW: We use a “safety-first, evidence-always” lens. If a treatment or biomarker hasn’t been vetted by peer-reviewed research, it doesn’t make it into our protocols. We are in the business of health and longevity, not quick fixes. Our medical team, led by Dr. Ariane Ouellet-Decoste, ensures that every insight we provide is grounded in clinical reality, not a wellness trend. 

What is the most dangerous myth or misconception about women’s health that you find yourself fighting against on a regular basis? 

CC-S: That periods are dirty, shameful, or something to whisper about. It sounds simple, but you’d be amazed how much damage is done across generations and cultures. I have spoken to women who thought they were dying when they got their first period—there was so much shame and stigma surrounding menstruation that no one had prepared them at all. 

So much progress has been made over the decades, thankfully, but now that I and so many of my peers have entered perimenopause, I’ve learned that there is a whole other host of treatable symptoms and conditions that come with this stage of life. So it once again feels like we have a lot of work to do to normalize conversations about all the different ways our hormonal cycles can affect our day-to-day lives. There are women and people who menstruate dismissing serious symptoms because they’ve been conditioned to think that suffering through your cycle, or getting hot flashes or mood swings in perimenopause, is just part of having a period. 

We can’t afford to have these conversations in the shadows anymore. The stigma isn’t just uncomfortable—it has real, material consequences for people all over the world. 

FLW: The myth that “hormone therapy is dangerous” is perhaps the most damaging legacy in women’s health. We are still living in the shadow of a decades-old study that was widely misinterpreted, leading an entire generation of women—and doctors—to believe that Menopausal Hormone Therapy (MHT) was a “health risk.” 

The reality? For the vast majority of healthy women under 60 who are within 10 years of their last period, the benefits—such as protecting your brain, bones, and heart—far outweigh the risks. At Coral, we treat MHT as a precision tool. It isn’t a one-size-fits-all “pill”; it’s a personalized path that considers your delivery method (like transdermal gels or patches), dosage, and unique health profile. We are moving the conversation from fear to informed agency, ensuring women have access to the gold-standard care they’ve been denied for twenty years. 

When DIVA and Coral first connected, what was the signal that this partnership made sense? 

CC-S: It comes down to mission alignment. Coral is asking the same questions that we’re asking here at DIVA: Why has women’s wellness been so neglected? And what can we actually do about it? That shared sense of urgency is what brought us together. We’ve spent over twenty years at DIVA fighting to bring women’s health out of the shadows, and when you find a partner who is doing that work from a different perspective, but with the same conviction, you can’t ignore it. 

FLW: DIVA and Coral are both focused on empowerment through education. We both want women to take control of their bodies and their health. Elevating two Canadian-bred companies to support women at different life stages isn’t a business goal—it’s a movement. We have a shared mission and together we can do more to fulfil it. 

What can we expect to see from this DIVA/Coral collaboration? 

CC-S:  More honest, accessible conversation about what women's bodies actually go through. At DIVA, we learned early on that when women understand what's happening in their bodies, everything changes. That's exactly the work we're now doing together with Coral. We'll be creating resources, sharing stories, and making sure that at no matter where they are in their period journey, women know that what they're experiencing is real, that there is support available, and that they don't have to navigate it alone. 

FLW: You can expect a merging of clinical expertise and period-to-menopause advocacy. We are coming together to provide a seamless resource offor education and community support. We’re moving the conversation beyond the products and the prescriptions to focus on the woman—ensuring she feels heard, seen, and supported from her first period to her postmenopausal years.