Teenagers and young women

Teenagers & early 20's and the pelvic floor

We often think that bladder weakness is only associated with more mature women, it can be a shock when young women are affected in their teenage years. For teenage women this experience can be embarrassing and debilitating. Also many younger women feel very alone and not able to discuss it with their peers.

Young women who become pregnant and have children in their teenage  years  and into their early twenties, may find their pelvic floor muscles are compromised. If you don’t get your pelvic floor muscles back into shape in between pregnancies, the issue can get worse. Whilst youth is a benefit in terms of quickly regaining muscle tone, many young women are surprised to experience leaking and a restriction in physical activity. Fortunately SmartBalls are ideal for teenage and young women to use and are effective in regaining pelvic floor tone and prevent bladder weakness.

Intense and prolonged physical over-exertion may weaken the pelvic floor muscles. Young women who are playing sport or working in hospitality roles where they are on their feet for long periods of time can be affected. When engaging in any strenuous exercise it is important to ensure there is a focus on core strength so that pelvic floor tone is maintained.

If you are you are young  and do find you are experiencing bladder weakness, SmartBalls are an easy and effective option. Worn as you go about your daily business and with a focused period of initial use (we recommend 6-8 weeks) you will quickly notice an improvement. Using your SmartBalls ongoing for maintenance will ensure you have excellent pelvic floor tone for your lifetime.

The different causes of incontinence

• Stress Incontinence: this is a very common type of bladder weakness often associated with sneezing, coughing, laughing, and jumping, where pressure on the abdomen puses on the bladder and can lead to urine leakage.
• Urge Incontinence: Urge incontinence is the most common type of incontinence. You may suddenly feel you have a desperate need to go to the toilet. Urge incontinence is often experienced by menopausal women.
• Mixed Incontinence: This type of incontinence is caused by a mixture of both stress incontinence and urge incontinence.
• Overflow Incontinence: During overflow incontinence your bladder cannot empty completely. As a result, your bladder will fill up very quickly making you feel like you need to go to the bathroom very frequently. Leakage is common.

Treatments for incontinence

• Drink 6-8 glasses of water a day to flush the bladder. Whilst to start with you may have to go to the toilet more frequently, this will drop off as your system reaches an equilibrium.
• Reduce caffiene intake from coffee, tea and ‘smart drinks’.
• Smoking can also exacerbate bladder weakness.

Pelvic Floor Exercises

Pelvic Floor or Kegel exercises, done regularly are an effective way to correct and prevent bladder weakness. Find out more on different ways to do pelvic floor exercises

Smart Balls the easy way to tone pelvic floor muscles

Bladder Retraining – how to train your bladder to urinate less frequently

• Drink 6-8 glasses of water each day, and delay going to the toilet each time, first by 5 minutes building up to each time by a few more minutes
• Work towards delaying urination by 15 minutes and your baldder will be retrained to hold on for longer
• Do not exceed the 15 minute delay as holding on for too long can in itself cause incontinence.