What Are the Risk Factors of Urine Incontinence in Women

Urine incontinence is a condition that presents with an inability to control the bladder function and involuntary leaking of urine. This condition can embarrass a person and make them have poor performance in their workplaces. It is estimated that urinary incontinence affects more tha 13 million adults and the condition affects more women than men. The severity of the condition varies in different people.

If you are experiencing involuntary leaking of urine, you should visit a healthcare provider who will take your medical history and perform a medical examination on you to determine what is the cause of the urine incontinence. Treatment of urine incontinence by Dr Max Kamerman depends on the type of incontinence that you have but the treatment may involve exercises to strengthen the pelvic floor, medications, injections, or surgery.

What Are the Symptoms of Urine Incontinence?

The symptoms of urine incontinence depend on the type of incontinence that you are suffering from. There are different types of urine incontinence, that is urge incontinence, stress incontinence, overflow incontinence, functional incontinence, and mixed incontinence. If you have urge incontinence, you will experience an urge to urinate and then urine will leak involuntarily from your bladder.

Urge incontinence also presents with a frequency of urination even at night. Urge incontinence is caused by infections and diseases like diabetes and neurological conditions. Stress incontinence presents with the leaking of urine when you cough, sneeze, during exercise, or when you are laughing. Urine may also leak when you lift heavyweights.

Functional incontinence is caused by physical conditions like arthritis or mental conditions that make you unable to reach the toilet on time and therefore you leak urine on the way to the toilet. Overflow incontinence is caused by an inability to empty the bladder incompletely and therefore you constantly leak urine involuntarily. If you experience two or more types of incontinence, this is referred to as mixed incontinence.

What Are the Complications of Urine Incontinence?

The urine that is constantly leaking can burn the skin around the genitalia and cause you to develop rashes and sores. Because the skin is injured, you can easily develop infections when microorganisms penetrate your skin. Incontinence also increases your risk of suffering from urinary tract infections.

Since you are unable to control the urine leaking, you may be afraid of being in social situations that require you to interact with people because you are embarrassed by the smell of urine. Urine incontinence can reduce your performance at work and this can put you at risk of job loss.

What Are the Risk Factors of Urine Incontinence?

Being a woman increases your risk of urine incontinence because of pregnancy. Women experience stress incontinence during pregnancy because of hormonal changes that occur during pregnancy and the increased weight. Having vaginal delivery also puts a woman at the risk of urine incontinence because the bladder muscles may be weakened and vaginal delivery may also cause the bladder to prolapse.

Old age is another risk factor for urine incontinence because the muscles of the bladder and the urethra become weak with time. Being overweight puts a lot of pressure on your bladder which increases the risk of urine incontinence. Other risk factors of urine incontinence include smoking and having a family history of incontinence.

The reduction of estrogen during menopause causes the bladder tissues to become weak and increase the risk of urine incontinence. If a woman gets her uterus removed in an hysterectomy, the support of the bladder is reduced and therefore the risk of incontinence also causes urine incontinence. Diabetes and other neurological conditions also increase the risk of urine incontinence in women.

Conclusion

Urine incontinence is a condition that presents with involuntary leaking of urine and is more common in women than in men. Pregnancy, menopause, being overweight, neurological conditions, and having diabetes are some of the risk factors of urine incontinence. You should seek treatment so that you can go be able to go to work and perform other duties comfortably.