Carol Smillie suffers from incontinence.
The 53-year-old TV presenter has confessed to falling victim to the unwanted urinary condition and was left mortified when she wet herself while playing on a trampoline with her children.
Carol – who has three kids with her husband Andrew Knight – said: "I think in my forties… it’s a cliche, but I do remember going on the trampoline with the kids, saying, ‘I don’t want to be one of those mothers sat on the side, I don’t want to be known as being boring’… and trampolining is quite a severe action that you’re doing.
"I don’t normally trampoline, I just wanted to be a cool mum! But thought [when it happened], ‘I’ll be back in a minute’, and worse it was in a bikini and I legged it and didn’t really think about it after that. I just thought I’d read about it and that’s clearly the stage I’m at."
The former ‘Changing Rooms’ host has since founded the company DiaryDolls, which produces pants aimed at women who suffer from incontinence issues and heavy periods, and hopes by speaking out about her own problem that she will encourage others to seek treatment for the embarrassing and often "debilitating" condition.
Speaking on ITV’s This Morning, she said: "If I’ve got a heavy cold or something and I blow my nose too often…[it can happen]. But I never thought to go to my GP, I thought I don’t like to bother him, I thought it’s not really that serious, it doesn’t really affect me every day – it’s only in those situations with a cold and I will not be going on a trampoline again – but it’s so huge this market.
"The more I talk to women about it because I’m in business now, about what goes on with women below their waist… we joke about it, but it’s actually not that funny… For many women it can be very debilitating."
The show’s Dr Chris Steele was also on hand to help viewers suffering from urinary incontinence to get to the source of the problem.
He said: "If you think of your bladder as an inverted pyramid, and the point of your pyramid is resting on your pelvic floor, like a hammock of muscles and they are supporting your bladder and bowels and all your internal organs, but of course when you’re pregnant with a heavy baby, that is a lot of stress put on the muscles… and those muscles fibres can get torn and weakened, and childbirth, getting older, menopause.
"It’s not just with age, 20 percent of women with this condition are aged under 30… it’s a medical taboo for many women, many not even telling their partner."
Carol Smillie suffers from incontinence
