News
Mother of three Emma Britton has been experiencing incontinence since the birth of her first child. She says women would benefit from receiving advice to see a pelvic floor physiotherapist who is knowledgeable in postnatal women and can give you guidance on how to rehabilitate.
Tory Toogood has been a pelvic health physiotherapist for 20 years. She works in private practice and spends some of her time teaching Masters of Physiotherapy students at Flinders University. She is passionate about helping women maintain the ability to engage actively throughout their lives and to have enough physical strength and fitness to do the things that they love doing.
I said, you know what, I’m going to do all the exercises, do all the stretching, do the massaging, do everything
I can do, and let's see what happens. I did everything that I needed to do.”
Welcome to the Autumn 2024 edition of the Bridge Magazine. This edition has a special focus on pregnancy-related conditions that affect continence. We explore topics such as preventative care for childbirth, birth injury and pelvic organ prolapse.
In this edition, we also share advice from physiotherapist Tory Toogood regarding the prevention and treatment of pelvic floor injuries. We converse with Georgia Triferis, a mother who has experienced pelvic organ prolapse who decided to raise awareness to help other women.
The Department of Health and Aged Care wants to hear from people impacted by incontinence to inform an independent evaluation of government-funded continence initiatives.
Incontinence is a very common health problem. More than 4.8 million people in Australia have bladder or bowel control problems for a variety of reasons.
As the Continence Foundation of Australia embarks on a new strategic focus and looks ahead to amplify impact and value for people with lived experience, members, stakeholders and government partners, the decision has been made to close our clinical continence services. This directly affects our paediatric clinic and Commonwealth Home Support Program in NSW and NDIS service which is a service delivered nationally.
With Amanda Carmody
Amanda Carmody is a registered nurse, child and family health nurse, midwife and paediatric continence nurse. She is based in Queensland, and she uses attachment-based strategies to help families and children with both sleep and continence issues. These strategies put attachment and connection between parents and children as a top priority when making any change.
The Continence Foundation of Australia is the national peak body promoting bladder and
By Jo Earp, Editor of Teacher.
This is an edited version of an article that first appeared in Teacher Magazine, published by ACER. Reproduced with kind permission. Visit http://www.teachermagazine.com for more.
Welcome to the Summer 2023 edition of Bridge. This edition has a special focus on toilet training, with plenty of information and tips to ensure a positive experience for your child. Summer offers an excellent opportunity to start toilet training and we have a page full of online toilet training resources for you on page 18.
Toilet Training Resources
The Continence Foundation of Australia has resources available to help your child reach those important toileting development milestones and gain greater toileting independence. All our resources are user-friendly with pictures and easy to follow steps, providing a general guide for parents and caregivers.
Melissa is 31, married with two children and she is an early childhood educator. Her eldest child, Bella, has encopresis, a condition she did not know existed before her child was diagnosed with it. “I didn't even know incontinence was a thing for people who didn't have severe disabilities. Toilet training went really well, as expected. You know, there were accidents here and there and then about a month in, she stopped doing poo in the toilet and it was just accidents, accidents, accidents.”
National Public Toilet Map
Plan your summer holidays with the national public toilet map.
Need to take the children to the toilet, change a baby’s nappy or find an accessible facility?
With Dr Janet Chase
Dr Janet Chase is a physiotherapist, academic and a founding member of the Continence Foundation of Australia. She started her career in women's health and has been a clinician in continence care for the past 35 years. “So many of the adults I was seeing said to me, ‘you know, this has always been a problem for me since I was a child’. So, I thought, why aren’t we treating the children?”
With A/Prof Patrina Caldwell
Associate Professor Patrina Caldwell is a paediatrician who specialises in incontinence in children. She began working in childhood incontinence when she was researching recurrent (or reoccurring) urinary tract infections in children. “That research made me realise that a lot of children had problems with urinary incontinence and that was the beginning of a lifelong interest in this space.”
Margaret worked as a nurse continence specialist at Caboolture Community Health in Queensland for many years. People could self-refer to the clinic where they ran a three-month continence treatment program after an initial assessment by Margaret and a pelvic health physiotherapist.
Margaret loved her work as a community nurse, sometimes sharing her own personal journey with incontinence when listening to and supporting her patients.
I am 27 years old and wanted to share my story in the hope that it would help others who are going through a similar experience.
I was born in India and moved to Australia with my family when I was three. I have always had debilitating period pain. Mum always said that I needed to put up with it, as it had been the same for her. I could never use a tampon as it was too painful. When I was 15, I remember a GP suggesting I should go on the oral contraceptive pill, but Mum said I wasn’t sexually active, so I didn’t need contraception.
Many years ago, when I was living in London, I worked with a woman who embarked on the Camino de Santiago solo in Spain. Each week, I would watch as she prepped and trained for this magnificent achievement. She didn’t know it, but at the time she lit a fire in me that I have been stoking for 22 years; that I too one day would do my own Camino trek.