What causes urinary incontinence in women?

Many modern women like to judge their physical health by the condition of their lower body. Urinary incontinence in women is something that many patients will encounter, but in a few cases it also occurs in normal people. The main clinical manifestations of urinary incontinence include: urgency and stress incontinence and other symptoms. Next, let’s take a look at the causes of urinary incontinence in women.

1. What causes urinary incontinence in women?

Mental factors. Due to work stress, high pressure, anxiety or neurotic bladder, the bladder muscles react allergicly and cannot inhibit bladder contraction, causing urinary incontinence.

Production damage. Multiple births, urethral prolapse, uterine prolapse, etc. This is because during childbirth, the pelvic muscles are damaged to varying degrees, and the ability to support some organs in the pelvic cavity is reduced, which can also lead to stress urinary incontinence. Clinically, it is found that the incidence of urinary incontinence in vaginal deliveries is higher than that in cesarean sections.

After menopause, women's estrogen levels decrease, causing the urethral mucosa to become thinner and its tension to decrease.

As we age, abdominal fat accumulates and increased abdominal pressure creates greater pressure on the bladder.

Racial factors: large-scale surveys show that Asians have more urinary incontinence than Europeans.

Surgical injury directly damages the pelvic floor muscles and nerves, such as surgery that damages the urethral sphincter or pelvic nerves due to cerebral cortical disease (stroke, dementia, etc.).

2. Clinical manifestations of urinary incontinence

Urge incontinence

This type of incontinence includes bladder instability, detrusor hyperreflexia, bladder spasm, and neurogenic bladder (uninhibited bladder), where the incontinence is related to uncontrolled detrusor contractions.

Stress Urinary Incontinence

Involuntary urine leakage occurs when the intra-abdominal pressure rises sharply during body movements such as coughing, sneezing, jolts or lifting heavy objects. Urinary incontinence occurs when the intra-bladder pressure rises above the urethral resistance without detrusor contraction. The defect in stress urinary incontinence is in the bladder outflow tract (sphincter dysfunction), which results in insufficient urethral resistance to prevent urine leakage.

3. How to check urinary incontinence

Laboratory tests include urine routine, urine culture, urea nitrogen, creatinine, serum potassium, sodium, chloride, and blood sugar. If the urination record indicates that the patient has polyuria, blood sugar, blood calcium, and albumin tests should be performed. If frequent urination and urgency are accompanied by microscopic hematuria, urinary tract tuberculosis, inflammation, and tumors should be excluded.

Urodynamic testing can confirm the diagnosis. There are two commonly used urodynamic tests: urodynamic test for detrusor overactivity and urodynamic test for stress urinary incontinence.

How to prevent urinary incontinence in women

1. Learn to regulate your mood and emotions. 2. Strengthen physical exercise and actively treat various chronic diseases. At the same time, you should carry out appropriate physical exercise and pelvic floor muscle exercises. The easiest way is to do 45 to 100 anal tightening and anal lifting exercises before getting out of bed in the morning and after lying down at night, which can significantly improve the symptoms of urinary incontinence.

2. To prevent urinary tract infection, develop the habit of wiping your hands from front to back after urinating or defecating to avoid urethral infection. Before sexual intercourse, the couple should wash the vulva with warm water. After sexual intercourse, the woman should immediately empty her urine and clean the vulva. If urinary pain or frequent urination occurs after sexual intercourse, you can take anti-urinary tract infection drugs for 3 to 5 days to quickly heal the inflammation in the early stages and maintain regular sexual life.

3. Strengthen physical exercise and actively treat various chronic diseases. At the same time, you should carry out appropriate physical exercise and pelvic floor muscle exercises. The easiest way is to do 45 to 100 anal tightening and anal lifting exercises before getting out of bed in the morning and after lying down at night. This can significantly improve the symptoms of urinary incontinence.

4. Women should pay attention to rest after giving birth, avoid carrying heavy weight or overwork too early, insist on contracting the anus for 5 to 10 minutes every day, do not hold urine, and pay attention to losing weight. If there is birth injury, it should be repaired in time.

5. Early detection and early treatment. If you find that the vagina feels blocked, there are lumps protruding from the vulva when urinating or defecating or straining, the vaginal discharge has an odor or is bloody, urination is difficult or not smooth, there is frequent urination or incontinence, back pain, abdominal distension and other symptoms, you should seek medical attention in time to prevent pelvic organ prolapse.