Stress Urinary Incontinence
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Stress Urinary Incontinence
Stress urinary incontinence (SUI) is leaking a little to a lot of pee with coughing, sneezing, running, jumping, lifting, etc - any activity that our pelvic floor muscles perceive as ‘additional stress’.
SUI is not necessarily a pelvic floor muscle weakness issue, it can result from a lack of coordination from the muscles within our core, diaphragm and pelvic floor or a mismanagement of the pressure inside of our intra-abdominal space.
For example, coughing while doubling over and clenching your inner thighs is a sure-fire recipe to leak some pee, there are layers of pressure with that experience. Instead, try setting up for a Core Breath (see below) prior to your next cough or sneeze!
Goals with SUI
Managing pressure
Pelvic floor muscle coordination
Learn appropriate posture that helps manage pressure and improves muscle coordination
Managing load with exercise
Learning breathing strategies to help manage pressure and assist in cueing pelvic floor
Learn how to fully empty bladder, avoiding urine retention
Learn how to coordinate pelvic floor muscles with deep core
Urinary Retention
As bladder angle changes or if pelvic floor muscles have high tone, you may experience retention or inability to fully void because the pelvic muscles can’t relax around the urethra.
Try rocking forwards and backwards on the toilet 5-10 times
Do a ½ way hover and sit back down 1-2 times before wiping and leaving the bathroom
Use a squatty potty to fully relax pelvic floor muscles when voiding
Try doing 5 deep diaphragmatic belly breaths to relax pelvic floor
No ‘power peeing’ or pushing out your pee by holding your breath
Pressure Management
Exhale with exertion or with movement or lifting in order to keep pressure low in intra-abdominal space
Posture should minimize pressure on pelvic floor - focus on stacking rib cage on top of hips, not flaring rib cage or thrusting chest forwards
Imagine knitting right and left abdominal walls together to brace core
Think about 4 points of abdominal wall = rib cage to pubic bone glide together and right and left hip bones glide together like you’re ‘zipping up a tight pair of jeans’
This should NOT feel like ‘sucking in’ in fact, you should be able to create this core activation on the EXHALE
Core Breathing
Core breathing can be especially helpful for connecting with your core and pelvic floor with breath, you can try it here: https://youtu.be/YY89tfd8Kds