Pelvic Floor Exercises
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Pelvic Floor Exercises What are the pelvic floor muscles? The pelvic floor muscles are a group of muscles that wrap around the underside of the bladder and rectum. Your doctor may advise that you strengthen your pelvic floor muscles: Pelvic floor exercises are useful to prevent and/or cure stress incontinence; particularly for women who have had children. • If you develop stress incontinence. Stress incontinence is when urine leaks when there is a sudden extra pressure (‘stress’) on the bladder. Urine tends to leak most when you cough, laugh, or when you exercise (like jump or run). Strengthening the pelvic floor muscles can often cure stress incontinence. • After childbirth. The common reason for the pelvic floor muscles to become weakened is childbirth. If you do pelvic floor muscle exercises after childbirth, it may prevent stress incontinence developing later in life. In addition, some people feel that having strong pelvic floor muscles heightens the pleasure when having sex. Spine Rectum Bladder outlet supported by pelvic floor muscles Urethra Vagina ©2013 Bray Group Limited Anus Pelvic floor muscles wrap around the underside of the bladder, uterus and r

Pelvic Floor Exercises to Treat Stress Incontinence It is important that you exercise the correct muscles. Your doctor may refer you to a continence advisor or physiotherapist for advice on the exercises. The sort of exercises are shown opposite. • Sit, stand or lie with your knees slightly apart. Slowly tighten your pelvic floor muscles under the bladder as hard as you can. Hold to the count of five, then relax. Repeat at least five times. These are called slow pull-ups. Learning to exercise the right muscles: • You need to do the exercises every day. • Then do the same exercise quickly for a...

Pelvic Floor Exercises to Treat Stress Incontinence After several weeks the muscles will start to feel stronger. You may find you can squeeze the pelvic floor muscles for much longer without the muscles feeling tired. It takes time, effort and practice to become good at these exercises. It is advised that you do them for at least three months to start with. You should begin to see benefits after a few weeks. However, it often takes 8-20 weeks for most improvement to occur. After this time you may be cured of stress incontinence. If you are not sure that you are doing the correct exercise,...

Pelvic Floor Exercises to Treat Stress Incontinence Other ways of exercising pelvic floor muscles Sometimes a continence advisor or physiotherapist will advise extra methods if you are having problems or need some extra help performing the pelvic floor exercises. These are in addition to the exercises described earlier. For example: • Electrical stimulation. Sometimes a special electrical device is used to stimulate the pelvic floor muscles with the aim of making them contract and become stronger. • Biofeedback. This is a technique to help you make sure that you exercise the correct muscles....