Education & Advice

Pregnancy is a very happy time in family lives but also brings changes and challenges as your body adjusts.

Incontinence during pregnancy

It is important to understand how to deal with the symptoms of incontinence during pregnancy. Pregnancy incontinence can be separated into different categories: stress incontinence, urge incontinence, a combination of both.

 Stress Incontinence

Stress incontinence refers to stress upon the sphincter and pelvic muscles. A person with stress incontinence will experience small urine loss from coughing, sneezing, laughing or physical activities such as running, lifting heavy objects or getting off a chair or bed. This is the most common type of incontinence and occurs mainly in women.

Urge Incontinence

A person with urge incontinence experiences sudden, urgent desires to urinate and is unable to ‘hold on’ and get to the toilet in time. Their incontinent episodes may occur often, but not always, and they may have a small bladder capacity. Urge incontinence is sometimes referred to as an ‘overactive bladder’ and leakage can occur unexpectedly, such as when touching water, hearing running water, or when urination is anticipated (when you arrive home and are putting your keys in the door, for instance).

Incontinenece Following Childbirth

For nine months, the pelvic floor has borne the weight of the baby, as well as the weight of the placenta and any additional kilos. The perineum may subsequently have trouble regaining its initial firmness.

Finding time is difficult but it is essential to undertake the recommended exercises both in the short and long term in order to reduce the risks of urinary incontinence.

There are a number of types of incontinence and many ways to live with incontinence.