subject: Incontinence Pads For Women – Move Over For Birth Control Pills [print this page] Incontinence Pads For Women Move Over For Birth Control Pills
Incontinence affects nearly 30% of women over the age of 60 and incontinence pads for women or other incontinence products are the most common method to manage the condition. But that might be changing.
Incontinence in women is mostly stress incontinence brought on by the pressures and injuries that occur to the pelvic floor muscles as a result of pregnancy and childbirth. As women age, that beat up group of muscles starts to lose tone, just like any other muscle group, and that decreases the support of the organs in the abdomen including the bladder.
With this decreased support, the bladder becomes easily influenced by both internal and external pressure and may cause an involuntary discharge of urine as a result. Laughing, sneezing, coughing or doing rigorous exercises can be the source of sufficient pressure to cause a leakage.
Incontinence pads and pants have been the traditional method of dealing with this issue. However, a study done in Sweden of over 10,000 seems to suggest that oral contraceptives may have a positive role on controlling stress incontinence. The study showed that women who had taken these contraceptives before menopause experienced decreased rates in both stress and urge incontinence after menopause. There was also a decrease in overactive bladder but it was statistically insignificant.
Traditionally it was thought that giving hormones to post menopausal women only worsened the condition. What the Swedish study discovered is that the hormones work differently on women before they reach menopause and that interaction of hormones apparently at least forestalls the incidence of urinary incontinence when the women become older.
It would appear that rather than stocking up on incontinence pads for women, older women could ask their doctors about the possibility of using oral birth control instead. There are obviously other therapies available as well like diet and exercise but it would be nice to know there is another option.
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