What is urinary incontinence?

Simply put, urinary incontinence refers to the uncontrolled and unconscious outflow of urine by adults in places where they should not urinate and when they cannot urinate.

Urinary incontinence is mainly divided into three types: stress incontinence, urge incontinence and mixed incontinence.

What is stress urinary incontinence?

Stress urinary incontinence refers to the involuntary outflow of urine when abdominal pressure increases such as coughing, sneezing or exercise. For example, mopping the floor, walking fast, skipping rope, and sharing a room with husband and wife may cause uncontrollable urine leakage. These patients are all caused by increased abdominal pressure. Today we will mainly talk about stress urinary incontinence.

Who is prone to stress urinary incontinence?

1. Postpartum women

There is a muscle group in the pelvic floor called pelvic floor muscle. Under normal circumstances, it is like a big net, covering the bladder, urethra, vagina and other pelvic parts. However, when women give birth, pelvic floor muscles will be extremely stretched, and when they exceed the stretching limit, they will break, necrosis and atrophy, which will affect the function of urethral sphincter.

2. The elderly

With the increase of age, pelvic floor muscles gradually relax, bladder and urethral sphincter function decline, and stress urinary incontinence is prone to occur.

3. Obese people

Obesity will increase the pressure of pelvic floor muscles and affect the normal function of urethral sphincter.

4. Others

Patients with long-term constipation, drinking, menopause or pelvic surgery, especially hysterectomy, are more prone to stress urinary incontinence.

How to improve stress urinary incontinence?

1. Losing weight, especially for people with severe and moderate obesity, can effectively reduce the occurrence of stress urinary incontinence.

2. Avoid heavy physical labor (lifting and moving heavy objects).

3. Treat long-term constipation and chronic cough to avoid further increase of abdominal pressure.

4. Bladder training. The purpose of bladder training is to learn how to control the impulse of emptying bladder and adjust bladder function by changing urination habits.

5. Behavior training helps to control urgency, and its main skill is to control pelvic floor muscles and improve the ability of self-control urine.

6. Limiting caffeine (found in tea, coffee and cola) may help.

7. Pelvic floor muscle exercise has a certain effect on different degrees of stress urinary incontinence.

The content of exercise includes slow contraction and fast contraction: slow contraction refers to tightening the pelvic floor as much as possible 10 second, taking a rest for 4 seconds in total, and then repeating contraction as much as possible, up to 10 times. Rapid contraction means to quickly pull up the pelvic floor and keep it at 1 s, and repeat it at most 10 times.