Running During Pregnancy & Incontinence Risk: What You Need to Know

Question
I know that pregnancy and delivery can increase your risk of incontinence if you don't do pelvic floor exercises.

If I continue to run through my pregnancy, is the pressure on my pelvic floor likely to make my chances of incontinence during or after pregnancy more increased??

Thanks.

Answer
From my experience, most women who develop pregnancy/postpartum incontinence and/or bladder prolapse tend to be unfit, with poor overall muscle tone, and with poor neuromuscular mechanics, especially in the abdominal wall. Runners and other athletes are at low risk for developing incontinence problems as they tend to start out with strong and well functioning pelvic floor muscles.

Certainly, all pregnant women should perform pelvic floor exercises, as well as core exercises for the Transverse Abdominis, or TvA. The TvA, pelvic floor, multifitus and diaphragm as designed to work together as a unit, to provide internal core stability. Generally, when one of these muscle groups is not functioning well, then the others won't be either.

Prolonged coughing and sneezing during the latter stages of pregnancy and/or postpartum period, due to a cold or the flu, can cause bladder prolapse in fit women.

Two safe TvA exercises for pregnancy can be found at the bottom of page:
http://www.befitmom.com/strength_training.html