Prevalence and treatment of post partum urinary incontinence
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5324/nje.v7i1.393Abstract
SUMMARY
Childbirth is often considered the main etiological factor in the development of female urinary incontinence
(UI). For that reason women in the western countries have been encouraged to engage in post partum
pelvic floor muscle (PFM) exercise in order to strengthen the pelvic floor. However, the effect of post partum
PFM exercise has been sparsely documented. The aim of this article is to review and discuss literature
related to prevalence of post partum UI and effect of post partum PFM exercise in the treatment of UI. The
reported prevalence of UI post partum varies from 0.7% to 44%. The variation may be explained by
different definitions of UI used in the questionnaires and that the registration of incontinence was done at
different intervals after delivery. A few studies have tried to evaluate the effect of post natal PFM exercise.
Some have evaluated PFM strength, others the frequency of UI. PFM strength is difficult to measure and
the reliability and validity of the methods used is open to question. Another flaw in some of the previous
studies is the training protocol applied to improve PFM strength. Mørkved and Bø tried to take into
account the above mentioned methodological considerations, in a study aiming to evaluate the effect of
post partum PFM exercise. The results demonstrate that post partum PFM exercise is effective in
strengthening the PFM and in the treatment of UI. However, success of PFM exercise is dependent upon
both the training frequency and intensity. This requires a closer follow up of the post partum women, than
the written information that usually serves this purpose at the present time.
Key words
: physiotherapy, pelvic floor muscles, urinary incontinence, post partum exercise, prevalence
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