Why Women Are More Prone to Urinary Incontinence

Urinary incontinence certainly crosses gender lines and affects both men and women; however, women are far more prone to the problem — about 60% of adult women in the United States report some degree of urinary leakage.

Given that November is National Bladder Health Awareness Month, the experienced team of women’s health care providers here at Bay Area Physicians for Women’s Health wants to shine the spotlight on female urinary incontinence and how we can help.

Different types of urinary incontinence

Women routinely deal with several different types of urinary incontinence, including:

• Stress incontinence — pressure on the bladder leads to leakage
• Urge incontinence — strong urges to go, which can’t necessarily be controlled
• Mixed incontinence — a stress and urge incontinence combination
• Functional incontinence — physical disability prevents getting to the bathroom in time

Again, both men and women can develop these different types of incontinence, but the condition favors females for many reasons, which we dive into next.

Women and urinary incontinence

Now let’s explore why women develop urinary incontinence more than men, which often boils down to these risk factors:

Pregnancy 

If you’ve ever been pregnant, you know that stress incontinence is common, especially in later trimesters as the fetus presses on your bladder. In fact, most women experience some degree of stress incontinence during pregnancy.

Pregnancy can also lead to ongoing issues with urinary incontinence if your pelvic floor was weakened or damaged during your pregnancy or during childbirth. Under normal circumstances, your pelvic floor provides critical support for your bladder, and absent this support, the organ can shift down, leaving you with stress incontinence.

Childbirth

If you’ve been through vaginal birth, you might be left with nerve damage around your bladder or a weakened pelvic floor, both of which can lead to mixed incontinence.

Menopause

When you pass through menopause, your levels of estrogen drop considerably. This hormone loss can lead to pelvic floor disorders and pelvic organ prolapse (organs shift out of place), both of which are roads to urinary incontinence. This is why women over the age of 50 are more vulnerable to incontinence issues.

Hysterectomy

If you had a hysterectomy, you might experience premature pelvic organ prolapse, which can lead to urinary incontinence.

There are other risk factors for urinary incontinence, such as aging, but let’s focus our discussion on those factors unique to women.

Resolving your urinary incontinence

No matter how you developed urinary incontinence, we want you to know that there are solutions. For example, for menopause-related incontinence, we can try hormone therapy, as well as pelvic floor strengthening exercises like Kegels.

For other types of incontinence, such as overactive bladder, we might recommend bladder training and/or Botox® injections to quiet the nerves and muscles around your bladder.

The bottom line is that we will work with you until you gain freedom from your urinary incontinence. To get that ball rolling, please contact our office in Mobile, Alabama, to schedule an appointment.