NIH selects Women & Infants to participate in Pelvic Floor Disorders Network

Hospital is 1 of only 8 sites selected from across the country

Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island has been selected by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to participate in the national Pelvic Floor Disorders Network (PFDN). Women & Infants is one of just eight medical centers from across the US, and the only one in the Northeast, to work collaboratively to develop and perform research studies related to women with pelvic floor disorders.

Co-principal investigators at Women & Infants are Deborah L. Myers, MD, director, and Vivian Sung, MD, MPH, of the Division of Urogynecology and Reconstructive Pelvic Surgery and faculty at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.

"Pelvic floor disorders are an issue of growing importance, from both an individual and public health point of view," said Dr. Myers. "Participating in such high-level, national research will offer us the opportunity to test and refine the most appropriate treatment protocols for women for generations to come."

The five-year grant from the NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development will enable members of the Network to design and conduct large-scale, high quality studies to significantly advance the care of women with pelvic floor disorders. Studies include treatments and prevention of urinary incontinence, fecal incontinence, pelvic organ prolapse, and other sensory and emptying abnormalities of the lower urinary and gastrointestinal tracts.

The PFDN team aims to learn more about how to help women with pelvic floor problems. Treatments are available, but there are still questions about how best to take care of women with pelvic floor problems. The PFDN was started to study pelvic floor problems and come up with answers to these questions.