You don’t have to accept incontinence as an inevitable part of growing older. If you are a woman who has had children, one common symptom you could be suffering from is incontinence, but there are things you can do to minimize it. Your gynecologist in Hollywood, FL sees women at all stages of life and has some advice about how to minimize stress incontinence.

Stress Incontinence

• Stress incontinence is when you experience a small leakage of urine when you cough, have sex,  sneeze, laugh, or pick something up.
• The bladder leaks a small amount of urine because the muscles of the pelvic floor have become weak.
• If you have stress incontinence, you will most likely be instructed to strengthen your pelvic floor.
• The chances of you having stress incontinence increases as you go through menopause.

The Pelvic Floor

• The muscles that are involved in stress incontinence are the collectively known as the pelvic floor.
• The pelvic floor supports the bladder and when it is weak, it can’t do its job of closing the urethra completely, and tightly.
• Other consequences of having a weak pelvic floor can include a lack of bowel control.
• Through strengthening the pelvic floor, you’ll gain more control over the muscle that closes the urethra, and so stress incontinence will be minimized.

Kegel Exercises

• The exercises that women will be familiar with are the Kegel exercises.
• You don’t have to dig very deep in online research to see that there are differing opinions when it comes to the efficacy of Kegel exercises.
• Check back for our next blog where we cover some of these differing opinions.