Resources

Most resource pages are alphabetical, which is useless when the question is how quickly you need help. These are sorted by urgency instead. Read the first list if something is happening now. Read the second if you are trying to get seen, get assessed, or understand what you have been told.

If it is today

Your local emergency number. 999 in the UK and Ireland, 911 in the United States and Canada, 000 in Australia, 112 across the European Union and from most mobile phones anywhere. Use it for new bladder or bowel trouble with back pain, saddle numbness or new weakness in both legs, for being unable to pass urine at all, for heavy bleeding after childbirth, and for feeling frighteningly unwell after a birth or an operation. The health disclaimer opens with the full list.

Your maternity unit or your surgical team. If you gave birth or had an operation within the last six weeks, they are the right call before any general service. Most maternity units run a 24 hour triage line, and it is not too small a thing to ring about.

Urgent, out of hours medical advice. NHS 111 in England, Scotland and Wales, GP out of hours in Ireland, healthdirect on 1800 022 222 in Australia, 811 in most Canadian provinces, and your insurer’s or health system’s nurse line in the United States. For anything in the same day list on the disclaimer.

If you are in distress, not just in pain. Years of not being believed, birth trauma and pelvic injury take a real toll, and reaching a helpline is not an overreaction.

• Find A Helpline (findahelpline.com), run by ThroughLine, lists free, confidential services in more than 130 countries and finds the right one for where you are.
• Befrienders Worldwide (befrienders.org) is a global network of emotional support centres.
• By country: Samaritans, 116 123 (UK and Ireland, free, 24 hours). 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (United States, call or text 988). Lifeline, 13 11 14 (Australia). 988 Suicide Crisis Helpline (Canada, call or text 988). 112 anywhere in the EU if it is an emergency.

Helpline numbers change, and a wrong number is worse than none, so these are checked at every content review. Last checked 30 July 2026. If you find one out of date, please tell us through the contact page.

If it is this month

Checking who is treating you

The registers page is the full version of this, with an entry for each body and what it actually regulates. In short: the statutory regulator confirms somebody is allowed to practise, the professional body tells you what they say they do, and a special interest network tells you they have declared an interest in pelvic health. Only the first of those is a licence.

• HCPC (United Kingdom), CORU (Ireland), the Physiotherapy Board of Australia through Ahpra, your state licensing board in the United States, and your provincial college in Canada.
• World Physiotherapy lists the right body for countries not covered above.

Guidelines, if you want to read the source

• NICE guideline NG123, urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse in women, and NG210, pelvic floor dysfunction: prevention and non surgical management. These are what a UK clinician is working from, they are free, and the recommendations are numbered so you can quote one back.
• European Association of Urology guidelines, for the urological side including continence after prostate surgery.
• World Health Organization recommendations on maternal and newborn care for a positive postnatal experience (2022), which is worth reading if you have been told what the evidence says about exercises started after birth, because it is more careful than most summaries of it.
• Cochrane Library, for the systematic reviews behind most of the figures on this site.

Understanding what you have been told

• International Urogynecological Association, whose Your Pelvic Floor library publishes free patient leaflets on prolapse, incontinence, pessaries and pelvic pain, in many languages.
• International Continence Society, which writes the standardisation documents that define the terms in your clinic letter.
• Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, for patient information on perineal tears, prolapse and mesh.
• NHS condition pages, which are plainly written and free of anything being sold.

Condition specific charities and campaigns

• Birth Trauma Association, for support after a traumatic birth.
• MASIC Foundation, specifically for women injured by obstetric anal sphincter injury during childbirth.
• Bladder & Bowel UK, for practical continence support including products and helplines.
• Pelvic Roar, a physiotherapy led campaign collaboration working on pelvic health awareness and access.

Physiotherapy bodies worth knowing

• POGP, the UK pelvic, obstetric and gynaecological physiotherapy network, which publishes free patient leaflets covering exactly the programmes described on this site.
• APTA Academy of Pelvic Health Physical Therapy in the United States, the Australian Physiotherapy Association, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy in the UK and the Canadian Physiotherapy Association.

Everything above is an independent organisation. None of them pays to be here, none of them has any relationship with this site, and none of them has endorsed it. Links to external sites are for reference only; see the health disclaimer.