After our recent post about Incontinence Exercises for Men, we’ve had lots of requests for information about Incontinence Exercises for Women.

These are fairly well documented but we thought it worth repeating them anyway.

The most important exercise for women to do is daily pelvic floor exercises (otherwise) known as Kegel Exercises. Pelvic floor exercises can be really effective at reducing leakage, but it’s important to do them properly. Remember that you may have to do pelvic floor exercises for several months before you see any benefits

Find out how to do pelvic floor exercises.

Pelvic Floor Exercises are most suitable for Stress Incontinence but may also help with Urge Incontinence, however the most effective treatment for Urge incontinence is bladder retraining.

Other things you can also do to help improve incontinence are:

-        Stop smoking. Coughing as a result of smoking puts strain on your pelvic floor muscles and can cause leaks.

-        Avoid lifting.  Lifting also puts strain on the pelvic floor muscles, so avoid it where possible. If you do need to lift something heavy then tighten your pelvic floor muscles before and during the lift.

-        Lose weight. Being overweight can weaken your pelvic floor muscles and cause incontinence, because of the extra pressure on the bladder. If this is the cause of incontinence then the condition may improve with weight loss.

-        Avoid constipation. Straining to empty the bowel can weaken the pelvic floor muscles and makes leakage worse, eating more fibre and taking more exercise can help

-        Cut down on caffeine. This irritates the bladder and can make incontinence worse. Coffee, Fizzy drinks, tea and hot chocolate contain caffeine, so cut down on these and replace them with water or herbal/fruit teas.

-        Reduce alcohol consumption. Alcohol is a diuretic, which makes you urinate more often so reducing alcohol may reduce incontinence.

-        Drink plenty of water. Many people with urinary incontinence cut down on fluids, as they believe it can reduce the risk of incidents, however this can lead to de-hydradation and constipation making the problem worse. Limiting fluid intake may also reduce the bladder's capacity making incontinence worse.

It is also good to remember that high-impact exercise such as jogging or aerobics puts pressure on the pelvic floor muscles and can increase leakage. Sit-ups can also strain pelvic floor muscles. To strengthen the pelvic floor to relieve incontinence symptoms, then try replacing high impact exercises with Pilates. Pilates focuses on strengthening the core muscles and doing this can be an effective treatment for stress incontinence.