The Ultimate Guide to Strengthening Pelvic Floor Muscles

A damaged pelvic floor may cause the following problems:

• Stress urinary incontinence
• Difficulty in emptying the bowels or bladder
• Prolapse
• Painful sex
• Pain in the pelvic area
• Backache
• Dislodged tampons
• A feeling of heaviness in the vagina

Stress urinary incontinence is one of the most common and embarrassing side effects of weakened pelvic muscles. This is when increased pressure to the abdomen causes involuntary urination, whether it’s through physical activity or simply sneezing, laughing or coughing.

Those who suffer from the condition might begin to struggle with social interactions and lose confidence and self-esteem as a result. Doing pelvic floor exercises will help the patient prevent any accidents from happening by strengthening their muscles.

To strengthen pelvic floor muscles, it’s recommended to do exercises every day during pregnancy.

They can be carried out straight after childbirth–if the patient is comfortable to do so—it’s perfectly safe and will make a dramatic difference to how quickly the muscles recover. However, if the patient isn’t happy to continue doing them immediately, it’s never too late to start.

The pelvic floor naturally weakens with age, so regular movements can help keep them as strong as possible. A study carried out in 2010 found that the exercises improve symptoms of stress urinary incontinence by up to 70%.

Depending on what is more comfortable, the exercises can be carried out lying down, sitting or standing.

While breathing as normal, the patient should squeeze the muscles slowly and pretend they are trying to stop the flow of urination midstream (without actually urinating) and hold for between five and 10 seconds.

However, they might not be able to grasp the squeeze for very long when first doing the movements, so they may wish to hold for less time, to begin with, and then build up to a longer time.

It is important that they have some of the squeeze left to release slowly at the end of the exercise. This should also be done without tightening their legs, stomach or buttock muscles.

For the muscles to regain their full strength, the exercises will need to be done between eight and 12 times a day for at least three months.

It’s easy to forget to do pelvic floor exercises every day, especially for busy new mothers. It’s useful to fit them into a daily schedule and for patients to complete a set while doing something else, such as eating a meal, talking on the phone or cleaning their teeth. If they are still likely to forget, it might also be helpful to place notes around their home as a reminder.

Another reason women may not be doing the exercises as often as recommended is that they don’t think they work (as 6.1% of women in the survey claimed). Perhaps this is because they aren’t achieving the accurate technique that is needed for the exercises to be effective. But with midwives and health visitors as overstretched as they are, many women might not be getting the support they need, during or after pregnancy, to achieve these goals.

This procedure takes less than 30 minutes, so is perfect for new mums who don’t have the time to do all of their daily pelvic floor exercises. To see longer-lasting results—usually around 18 months to two years—it’s recommended to have three treatments every four to six weeks.

As well as helping with stress incontinence, Femilift can also relieve vaginal dryness and soreness and heighten sensation, making sex less painful and more enjoyable. Because it involves no surgery,

there isn’t any recovery time and they also won’t suffer any side effects. However, it’s advised to wait at least three months from giving birth before having the treatment, so that any scars from tears or episiotomy have had the opportunity to heal.

To further prevent the pelvic floor muscles from weakening with age, patients could also:

• squeeze and hold the muscles before sneezing, coughing or lifting
• avoid lifting heavy objects when possible
• fully empty their bladder when going to the toilet
• refrain from going to the toilet when their bladder doesn’t feel completely full because urinating when not needed teaches the bladder to want to empty itself more frequently (however, keep in mind that during pregnancy it is normal to go to the toilet more)
• drink plenty of fluids and introduce more vegetables, fruit and fibre into their diet to avoid constipation