Types of incontinence

So what are the types of urinary incontinence? There are several types of incontinence that you might be experiencing. Stress urinary incontinence is the most common, and this is where there’s involuntary loss of urine when you’re making an effort such as lifting a baby, or you’re shopping, or with physical activities such as sport, or when you cough or sneeze. An overactive bladder is a collection of symptoms such as urinary urgency, and this is where your bladder sends you to the toilet very quickly. And so you go more frequently during the day, and the bladder may wake you up more often at night. These symptoms happen when you don’t have a urinary tract infection.

Urgency incontinence may be associated with an overactive bladder if you leak as you go to the toilet. So it may just be a few little dribbles, or the whole bladder may empty before you reach the toilet. Mixed incontinence is a combination of stress and urgency incontinence. So do pelvic floor muscle exercises work? We know from the evidence from a Cochrane review that women who were continent and did their pelvic floor exercises during pregnancy were about 62% less likely to have urinary incontinence later in their pregnancy and 29% less likely to have it three to six months after they’d had their babies. So we can see how important it is to do your pelvic floor exercises.

If you can improve the strength and the control of your pelvic floor muscles, you will have less leaking and be much more likely to reach the toilet on time. In our next video, we will be looking at the triggers and activities that may be causing your urinary incontinence, and then we can look at how we can do something about it.