Between 24% and 29% of women suffer from SUI post-pregnancy. Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is a widespread disease prevalent in women after their first birth. It is a form of urinary incontinence caused by loss of support of urethra. As a result of childbirth, a mother’s pelvic support structure has experienced damage.
Similarly, high-impact activities or exercise can develop athletic incontinence. This condition is characterised as small urine leaking during activities which increase abdominal pressure such as laughing, sneezing, and lifting heavy objects.
Stress urinary incontinence has altered a women’s connective tissue metabolism, which causes decreased collagen production and can result insufficient urogenital tract support.
Vaginal muscles must be able to contract to maintain continence, and to relax allowing for urination and bowel movements, and for sexual intercourse as well as for giving birth. They also support and protect the organs of the abdomen and hold the bladder in its proper place.
The pelvic muscles can become stretched or weakened due to ageing and more specifically due to pregnancy. This often happens after a difficult childbirth which overstretches or tears the pelvic muscles and can also be the result of giving birth to several babies within a very short time span. Their under use can also cause pelvic floor weakness.
This set of muscles, also known as the muscles of the perineum, forms the floor of the pelvic cavity and supports the pelvic organs such as the bladder, uterus, and colon and intestine.
These muscles act like a rubber band, they need to be tensed but neither too tight to avoid pelvic floor muscle disorder nor too loose, because in both cases they will lose the right degree of elasticity and therefore their main function and could potentially create a pelvic floor dysfunction.
